
Class _ 
Book 

Copyright}] . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Evening Round-Up 




N * 



the 
author 




Evening Round -Up 

More Good Stuff Like 

PEP 



BY t-^' 

COL. WM. CrHUNTER 

Author of 

Pep — Dollars and Sense — Brass Tacks 
Ginger Snaps — and Other Books 



$1.00 Net 



PUBLISHED BY 

HUNTER SERVICE 

KANSAS CITY, MO., U. S. A. 






Copyright, 1915 

by 

WM. C. HUNTER 



HOM -41915 



5CU416199 

/ 7^# i / ' 



CONTENTS 



Page 

Anger 150 

Brass Tacks 250 

Character 252 

Church 180 

Closing Note 242 

Continuous Happiness ... 86 

Crying Babies 218 

Dad 215 

Daughters 138 

Diet Rules 71 

Doing Things Twice 34 

Dollars and Sense 249 

Dreams 97 

Egotism 188 

Elimination 82 

Fake Medicines 177 

Food 134 

Friends 104 

Geology 193 

Ginger Snaps 251 

Girl 221 

Gloom 46 

Happiness 49 

Home 68 

Inventory 185 

Insomnia 156 

In the Big Woods 124 

Laziness 119 

Leaders 231 

Making Plans 14 

Man's Danger 108 

Medicine 57 

Mental Pleasures 206 

Mistakes 159 

Mother 128 



Page 

Natural Law 18 

Negative Attitude 73 

Nerves 38 

Observation 28 

Old Age 234 

Our Bodies 131 

Our Sons Ill 

Panama 209 

Patriotism 197 

Pep 246 

Perseverance 190 

Personal 22 

Pessimists 43 

Pills 173 

Pioneer Mothers 145 

Poise 142 

Practical Helps 26 

Reading 61 

Real Charity 100 

Religious Extremes 114 

Ridicule 200 

Salt 154 

Self Accusation 89 

Sincerity 167 

Speculation 225 

Stars 228 

Thought Control 53 

Time 238 

To-day 212 

To-morrow 161 

Verbomania 65 

Walking 78 

Wives 203 

Woman's Beauty 94 

Worry 9 



Dedicated 
to Nancy, my wife 

• • 



FOREWORD 



EACH EVENING, just before retiring, we will 
have a little Round-Up of the day's doings, 
of the problems in our business and home life, of 
our hopes and ambitions. 

We'll try to solve perplexities, dissolve worries, 
absolve ourselves from pull-backs, and resolve to 
better our lives. 

We'll plan and prepare that we may have more 
poise — efficiency — peace; that's Pep. 

We'll learn how to establish helpful thought 
habit that our lives may be full of gladsome notes 
instead of gruesome gloom. 
We'll aim at 

LIFE — LOVE — LAUGHTER 
These, then, are the purposes of this book. 
WM. C. HUNTER, 
Kansas City, Mo. 
July 18, 1915. 



WORRY 



The Nerve Racking Pace That 
Causes "Americanitis" 

Nervous breakdowns are increasing as a 
result of the American worry phobia. 

This high tension Americanitis presumes 
too much upon nature, by persistently 
forcing the nerves to carry loads far beyond 
their capacity. 

So many people are pleasure mad, they 
become so deadened by excess of enjoyment 
and indulgence that ordinary pleasure is 
uninteresting. They seek unnatural ex- 
citement, original methods and unusual 
activities to appease the appetite. Then 
they become blase and constitutional 
pessimists. 

It's a maddening, nerve racking pace 
they go. To keep up the gait there is an 
incessant battle for wealth, and the struggle 
wears and weakens the nervous systems. 

Both men and women go the terrific 
gait. Men and women having this health- 
destroying worry, mate and marry and they 

9 



10 EVENING ROUND-UP 

lay foundations for deficient progeny that 
suffers from the sins of the parents. 

The phobia is almost universal; it has 
permeated all classes of society from high- 
est to lowest. 

Excitement, that's the keynote; for the 
rich there is society and polo and useless 
functions and conventions. 

Society is a game of cards, not only play- 
ing cards for money, but the card conven- 
tion of paying calls by leaving pasteboards 
in lieu of the old-fashioned visit. 

Society is the builder of fourflushers, the 
generator of insincerity — falsehood and 
rottenness. 

For the poor, the aping of the rich, in 
dress the wearers can ill afford, the picture 
shows, the cheap theatres, the automobile, 
bought with a mortgage on the home. 

It's rush, push, excitement at any cost. 
The great cost which they don't seem to 
consider is the cost of the nerves. 

We all enter the world with an abundance 
of nerve energy, and by conserving that 
energy we can adapt and adjust our nerve 
equipment to keep pace with the progress 
and evolution of our times. 

The way to preserve and conserve nerve 



EVENING ROUND-UP 11 

equilibrium and power is to rest and relax 
the nerves each day. 

You may rest them by a change of the 
thought habit each day, by relaxation, by 
sleep, and by suggestions made in this 
book. 

There are few advance danger signals 
shown by the nervous systems, and in this 
there is a marked difference between the 
nerves and the organic system. 

If you abuse your stomach, head, heart, 
lungs, liver, kidneys or eyes, you have 
distress and pain. 

The nervous energy is like a barrel of 
water; you can draw water from the faucet 
at the bottom until you have almost ex- 
hausted the contents. 

Nature mends ordinary nerve waste each 
day, like the rains replenish the cistern. 

A reasonable use of your nerve force, 
like a reasonable use of the rainwater, 
means you can maintain a permanent 
supply. 

But you must be reasonable; you must 
give the cistern a chance to refill and replace 
that which you have drawn out. 

You, who have shattered and tattered 
your nerves, are not hopeless. You can 



12 EVENING ROUND-UP 

come back, but it must be done by com- 
plete change of the acts that brought on 
the condition. 

Get more sleep. Eliminate the useless, 
harmful fads, fancies and functions, which 
disturbed and prevented you from living a 
sane, rational life. 

Avoid extremes, cultivate rhythm and 
regularity in your business and your home 
lite. Keep away from excitement. Read 
really good books. Walk more, talk less. 

Eat less heat -making foods and more 
apples. Follow the diet, exercise and 
thought rules suggested in "Pep." 

Maybe these lines are being read by a 
discouraged one who is "all nerves," which 
means lost nerve force. To you I say there 
is hope and cheer and strength and courage 
if right here, now, you resolve to cut the 
action, habits and stunts that knocked you 
out and follow our suggestions. 

I know, my friend, for I've trotted the 
heat, danced the measure, and been through 
the mill. 

Now I am fearless, calm and prepared. 
I can stand any calamity, meet any issue, 
endure any sorrow. 

I can do prodigious work in an emergency, 



EVENING ROUND-UP 13 

go without rest or eating when required, 
because I have Pep, which means poise, 
efficiency — peace. 

I realize nothing bad is as bad as it is 
painted. Nothing is as good as its boosters 
claim. 

I go in the middle of the road, avoiding 
extremes. I have confidence in my heart, 
courage, hope, happiness, and content. 

I've buried envy in a deep pit and cov- 
ered it with quick lime. 

I am keeping worry out by keeping 
faith, hope and cheer thoughts in my 
brain room, and these are antiseptics 
against the worry microbe. 

I have my petty troubles and little make- 
believe worries, just enough of them to 
make me realize I have them licked, and 
to remind me I must not let up on my 
mastery of them. 

Worry growls once in a while just to 
make me grab tighter the handle of my 
whip. 

And you may enjoy this serene state, 
too. There is no secret about it. I will 
gladly give you the rules of the game in 
this book. Just prepare to receive some 
practical, helpful suggestions. 



MAKING PLANS 



How to Use Our Assets to Best 
Advantage 

You are a busy person, so am I. Busy 
persons are the ones who do things. The 
architect is a busy man, but he has learned 
that the time spent in preparing his plans 
is the most valuable employment of his 
time. The plans enable him to do his work 
systematically and lay down rules and 
methods to get the highest efficiency and 
accomplishment from those who do the 
work of erecting the building. 

If the architect would order lumber, 
stone and hardware, without system, and 
start to erect the building without care- 
fully prepared plans, the building would 
lack symmetry and strength, and it would 
be most expensive. 

The planning time therefor was time 
well spent. 

Few persons have the ability to plan and 
conserve their talents so as to produce the 
highest efficiency. Men rush along think- 
ing their busyness means business. Really 

14 



EVENING ROUND-UP 15 

it means double energy and extra moves 
to produce a given effect. 

The elimination of unnecessary moves 
means operating along lines of least resist- 
ance, and any plan or method that will help 
to do away w T ith unnecessary moves and 
make the necessary moves more potential 
will be received with welcome, I am sure. 

With the object of conserving energy and 
strengthening your force, this book is 
written. 

It shall not be a book of ultimate definite- 
ness or a book of exact science. There is 
no definite or exact rule that will apply, 
without exceptions, to any science except 
mathematics. 

But we shall learn many helpful truths, 
nevertheless, and if I err or disagree with 
your conclusions, just eliminate those lines 
and take the helps you find. 

In my previous book, "Pep," I particularly 
emphasized the importance of taking a few 
minutes each evening and using the time 
for sizing up things, by inventory, analysis, 
speculation, comparison and hypothesis. 

I have received many comments about 
that particular suggestion. 

I find that many of the great captains of 



16 EVENING ROUND-UP 

industry who are accomplishing things 
worth while, have learned the value of this 
daily habit. 

Mr. E. C. Simmons, the president of the 
Simmons Hardware Company, has for about 
fifty years followed this daily sizing up plan. 
He takes fifteen to twenty minutes each 
evening in seclusion, with closed eyes, and 
finds the weaknesses of his plans, formulates 
new plans, and generates new ideas for the 
morrow. He says this habit is one of the 
greatest contributing factors to his success 
and to the building up of the largest hard- 
ware business the world has ever known. 

I want to help YOU to form the habit of 
rounding up each day's activities in the 
quiet, relaxed, uncolored, unprejudiced se- 
cluded environment of your home. Each 
evening we will together size up things — a 
sort of daily round-up. 

I have chosen the evening as the time 
for our little talks. In the evening we can 
be cozy, comfy and communicative. The 
bank is closed. We met the note and got 
through the day. We are alive and well; 
we can open our hearts. There is no office 
boy to disturb us, and the life insurance 
agent is away at his club. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 17 

Yes, we can be alone and tranquilly let 
down the tension, lower the speed and with 
normal heartbeats play the low tones, the 
soft strains, the quieting music, and soothe 
our nerves. 

All day we've heard the band with its 
drums and trombones and shrieky music. 
The day with its busy whirl kept our 
analyzing mental think-tank occupied with 
thoughts of gain and game and fame. 

In the evening we have time to study 
logic and to reason, to analyze and inven- 
tory, to thresh out problems. 

So let us relax and reflect in these even- 
ing round-ups. 



NATURAL LAW 



Obedience Is Rewarded, Violation 
Is Punished 

Man's nature makes it imperative for 
him to be interested in something. 

That interest is to his help or hurt, 
according as he directs it. 

There is much worry and misery in the 
world because so many are astatic, like a 
compass that has lost its loadstone. 

Man is definitely the result of the 
materials the body and the mind feed 
upon. 

Character is the result of a determined 
purpose to be and to do right, to one's self 
and to his fellows. 

The man of character focuses his atten- 
tion on truth, and on fact. 

He uses theories with fact, to aid his 
progress, but he recognizes that theories, 
without fact as a safety ballast, is a useless 
expenditure. 

Theories without fact leaves man in a 
rudderless boat; he gets nowhere, he only 
drifts. 

18 



EVENING ROUND-UP 19 

Theories often help to get at facts, but 
the better way is to get at fact by proven 
experience, of which there is an inexhaust- 
able abundance in the world. 

Facts are based on natural laws. The 
study of natural laws is beneficial. 

We shall strive in our studies to keep 
close to fact with just enough speculation 
to enliven the interest in facts. 

Living the artificial life makes for worry, 
illness and failure. 

Living in harmony with the great natural 
laws is the helpful way to live. 

To abide by the law is safety, to violate 
the law brings punishment. 

Every man is better if he follows scientific 
methods and habits of thought and living. 

The loafing or astatic mind will fall into 
morbid tendencies. 

The employed, truth-seeking, idealistic, 
hopeful mind is never dependent on people 
or things for its pleasure. 

The acquiring of helpful knowledge, the 
seeking of worth-while truth, are ever 
profitable employments, paying present and 
future dividends, and meanwhile those 
acts positively divert the thought from 
morbid tendencies. 



20 EVENING ROUND-UP 

The Evening Round-Up is intended to be 
a companionable, helpful text book, a 
counselor and a friend. 

We shall strive to bring helpful knowl- 
edge, good cheer and interesting facts, for 
your present occupation and benefit. 

If I succeed in accomplishing my purpose 
even in part my time has been well spent. 

We have an unchallenged fact to rest 
our feet on, a fact that shall follow us 
through all the pages of this book; and 
that is: our thoughts NEVER stop, our 
brains never sleep. 

While we live we shall never get away 
from our thought; so then, we must con- 
sider that thought current, and reckon 
with it. 

The motive power is turned on and we 
must grasp the helm if we sail the sea of 
life successfully, baffling storms and avoid- 
ing rocks. 

Scientific books are usually dry, uninvit- 
ing reading; they lack the human interest. 
They are generally bloodless skeletons. 

We shall try to weave science into new 
patterns and paint interesting pictures so 
that science will attract and not repel. 

This book is different in its suggestions, 



EVENING ROUND-UP 21 

in its prescriptions, in its language, but it 
is universal with all scientific books, in that 
its aim is helpful truth. 

We go by different routes, but our ob- 
jective point is the same. 

We will avoid technical names and sym- 
bols and speak the common language that 
the multitude understands. 

We shall deal with problems and aspira- 
tions that come to us all in this busy 
workaday world. 

We shall try to cut the underbrush in 
the swamp and blaze a plain trail out on to 
the big high road. 

We shall keep in step to the drum -beats 
of truth, we will rest and recreate in cool 
shady places, and then up and on to our 
purpose with smiles on our faces, courage 
in our hearts, and song on our lips. 

Every moment of our journey shall be 
worth while and positively helpful if we 
take the trip with conscientious applica- 
tions, and continuity of purpose. 

Our path is strewn with roses and thorns; 
we must enjoy the roses and escape the 
thorns. 

We welcome you, the neophyte, who has 
joined us in our pilgrimage. 



PERSONAL 



Are YOU Pleasant to Live With? 

Let's be personal; that's a good way to 
establish a good idea in place of a bad one. 

Are YOU pleasant to live with? Keep 
this personal question before you, even if 
you are cocksure that you can answer, yes. 

Maybe there are some little jars, rattles, 
gratings, you are not aware of. Few of us 
are honest when looking for our own faults. 
There may be some sand in your gear box. 
It won't hurt you to keep the personal 
question alive for a few days, — "Am I 
pleasant to live with?" 

I love the pleasant people whether they 
are fat, lean, tall, short, red heads, brown 
heads, homely, handsome, republicans or 
democrats. 

The complaining, unpleasant grouch is 
like a bear with a toothache, miserable 
himself and spreading misery all around. 

A freckle-faced, red-headed, cross-eyed 
man with a healthy funny bone will spread 
more cheerfulness and sunshine than a 

22 



EVENING ROUND-UP 23 

bench full of sad and solemn justices of the 
supreme court, or a religious conference. 

What a different story would be written 
of Job, if he had only possessed a servant 
who could dance a double shuffle and 
whistle * 'Dixie" while cooking breakfast. 

David was a man after my own heart; 
he brought gladsome songs into the world. 
He, said "Live the ways of pleasantness." 

You can pray, sing, play, work, think, 
rest, hope, you can be well or ill, rich or 
poor and still be pleasant to live with. 

Being pleasant helps you to be strong in 
body and mind, and it keeps you young a 
long time. It's good medicine, I know it. 
My little motto, "Be pleasant every morn- 
ing until ten o'clock, the rest of the day 
will take care of itself," has brought sun- 
shine into many homes. 

If you frown it will soon get to be a 
habit — and give you a heavy heart. If you 
smile your face will be attractive, no matter 
how unlucky you were in the lottery of 
beauty. 

Be pleasant and you will never feel old. 

Every girl wants to catch a husband. 
Remember this, girls: A pleasant disposi- 



24 EVENING ROUND-UP 

tion is more benefit than seven barrels of 
beauty cream. 

The pleasant disposition is a sure route 
to happy land and happy homes. 

Old Ponce de Leon lost out in searching 
for the fountain of youth. If he had been 
pleasant he would have kept the smiles on 
his wife's face and there would have been 
no excuse to leave her to find the mythical 
fountain. 

Hoe cake, bacon and smiles beat lobster, 
champagne and frowns. 

Our land is thrice blessed with its peace- 
ful, happy homes — for "happy homes are 
the strength of a nation." 

Be pleasant in your home, make the 
children feel home is the pleasantest place 
in the world. 

Every act and example is written in the 
child's memory tablet. Let your hours with 
the children be loving, laughing, living hours. 

Pat them on the head, joke with them, 
whisper affection, express love to them. 
Those acts will be remembered in all their 
years to come, for you are planting ever- 
lasting plants that may pass onto a hundred 
generations and make children happy a 
thousand years from now. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 25 

Be pleasant to live with and the people 
will turn to you as you pass and shine your 
cheerfulness like the sunflowers turn to face 
the sun. 

Be pleasant to live with and you will 
have more pleasant things to live for, and 
there will be kindnesses, kisses, beauty, 
health, peace, fun, happiness and content 
coming your way all along the great big 
road of life you are traveling. 

Be pleasant, don't be cross and crabbed 
because someone else in the household is 
not pleasant. Do your part; you will likely 
thereby cure the frown habit on the face 
of the unfortunate disturber of your peace. 

Make yourself right before you criticize 
your life partner. Answer this question, 
"Am I pleasant to live with?" 

Don't fool yourself in the matter. Get 
right down to brass tacks with yourself, 
watch your moves and acts and attitude 
for ten days carefully before answering the 
question. 

If your answer is no, then now is your 
time to change your attitude and try the 
pleasant plan, and here is my blessing and 
good wishes in such an event. 



PRACTICAL HELPS 



Dealing With Actual Conditions 
You Are Facing 

I have been fortunate in having splendid 
eye-sight and hearing, and with these, a 
good memory. 

I've traveled much and my education 
has been getting experience directly or 
learning experience directly from those who 
had experience. 

All the while I've had to do with, and 
about business and social problems, and 
with and about the things which worry 
and perplex the man or woman in the busi- 
ness as well as the home world. 

I am trying to stage this book, and our 
relationship, upon practical things we are 
to talk about. I want you to know and 
feel I have hoped and feared even as you 
have. 

I am in the midst of these things even 
now as I write this book. I am not in a 
reflective mood, living in the past or glory- 
ing in deeds of other days. I am writing 

26 



EVENING ROUND-UP 27 

this today and of today, even as you are 
reading it today. 

By day I face reality and problems, and 
temptations and tricks and frauds and 
deceits, and after the day is over I write 
these lines and try to inoculate myself 
with a serum or toxin that will serve as a 
safeguard on the morrow to ward off the 
things which try to annoy and distract me 
from my purpose: to do, and to be, as nearly 
right and fair as I can, in act and thought 
and word. 

Continuity on a singleness of purpose is 
a valuable thing. Fabre spent his life 
studying insect life. His books on the 
spider and others on the life of insects are 
the result of a whole life spent on the one 
hobby or study of insects. 

My occupation has been full of abrupt 
changes. Each day is a kaleidoscope, and 
so, as I write between times, these chapters 
may be like the boy who said of the dic- 
tionary, "a mighty powerful book but the 
subject changes so often." 

I write these chapters as the spirit moves 
and opportunity allows, and you may read 
the same way. But be sure you make 
opportunity happen often. 



OBSERVATION 



Sitting on the Side Lines, Watching 
the Crowd 

There is fun and interest and diversion 
all around us. All we need is keen observa- 
tion and we will see much that passes un- 
noticed to the preoccupied person. 

What an interesting thing is the great 
round world we live in. The people are as 
interesting as fish in an aquarium. 

See the rushing, surging crowd. Man, 
pushing along searching for necessary things 
to be done, he builds cities, harnesses rivers, 
makes ships to sail the seas to the utter- 
most parts of the earth. Man goes to war, 
he builds death-dealing devices. 

Man makes the desert blossom like a 
rose. 

Here is the scientist in his laboratory, 
trying to unite certain elements to produce 
new substance. Here is the beauty in her 
silken nest; here the lover; there the musi- 
cian; yonder the peanut man and in the 
office building is the captain of industry: 

28 



EVENING ROUND-UP 29 

All busy bees deeply absorbed in their 
respective interests, and intoxicated in the 
belief that they are important and greatly 
necessary. 

Yet in the broad measure of ages they 
are mere ripples on the sea of time, faint 
bubbles on the eternal deep, and grains of 
sand at the mountain foot. 

Great man by his own measure, minute 
man by the great measure of time. Mam- 
moths to the near-sighted, mites to the far- 
sighted. Hustle and bustle, crowd and 
push. They tramp down the weaker 
brothers in the mad race after the golden 
shekels, which are only measures of ability 
to buy and own material things; symbols of 
power to make others serve you. These 
golden shekels which men fret, sweat and 
fight for, can only buy physical and ma- 
terial things. 

Away from the crowd is the little group 
who have learned a great truth, which is, 
happiness is not to be bought with gold. 
This little minority knows that mental 
pleasures are best, and that mental pleasures 
cannot be found on the great highway of 
material conquest. 

The puffy, corn-fed millionaire pities the 



30 EVENING ROUND-UP 

man who is content to live with small means 
and enjoys what he has to the full extent. 

The wise man is he who gets the fullness 
out of life, happiness, respect, content, 
freedom from worry, who is busy doing 
useful things, busy helping his brother, 
busy training his children, busy spreading 
sunshine and love and the close-together 
feeling in his home circle. 

The corn-fed, hardened, senseless, money- 
mad, dollar-worshipper knows not peace. 
Smiles seldom linger on his lips. Peace 
never rests in his bosom, cheer never lights 
his face. He is simply a fighting machine, 
miserable in solitude, suffering when in- 
active and sick when resting. 

The money-chaser is up and doing, work- 
ing like a Trojan, because occupation takes 
his mind off the painful picture of his mis- 
spent opportunity and his destroyed natural 
instinct. When fighting for gold he forgets 
his appalling poverty of the really worth- 
while things in the world. 

Like the drunkard in his cups the intoxi- 
cation makes him forget, and he is nega- 
tively happy. 

Money received as reward for doing 
things worth while is laudable. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 31 

We cannot sit idly by and neglect to 
earn money to provide food, shelter and 
education for our loved ones, but between 
times we should seek the wealth that comes 
from right mental employment. 

The millionaire thinks, dreams and gets 
dollars and that is all. 

The worth-while man thinks kindness, 
usefulness, self-improvement, brotherhood, 
love, and he gets happiness. 

The man who discovers means to help 
his fellowman, does a good act, but it is the 
man with the dollars in front of his eyes 
that commercializes the discovery and in- 
vention. 

In the end the man that helped mankind 
fares better than the man who made the 
millions. 

It's a great crowd surging by, and very 
few have the good sense to learn the value 
of TODAY. That great crowd I see below 
my window thinks ever of tomorrow and 
forgets TODAY. 

Those who think always of tomorrow 
will never get the beauties and joys from 
life that comes to the little group, of Today, 
who appreciates and enjoys the real Now, 



32 EVENING ROUND-UP 

rather than the pictured Tomorrow that 
never comes. 

It's mighty interesting to watch the 
crowd go by and speculate on their move- 
ments. 

Save up your pennies, measure every- 
thing by the dollar standard, think dollars, 
dream dollars, work, slave, push for the 
dollars and you will build a fortune. You 
will never have peace or recreation, or joy; 
you will live only in hope of a some day 
when you will retire. That's the way the 
millionaires travel life's highway. 

Some day the paper will announce the 
death of those millionaires and then the 
dollars will be blown in by reckless heirs, 
and so the grinding wheels roll on. 

Surely there are many ways of looking 
at things. Surely there is much of interest 
in the crowd. Surely there is an unending 
fund from which to speculate, in that 
crowd way down on the street below my 
window. 

What passions, what hopes, what joys, 
what sorrows, are in the hearts of that 
hurrying, worrying crowd. 

What noise this din of traffic makes, 
what activity man has stirred up. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 33 

A picture, a drama, a tragedy, a comedy, 
all these I see in the human ants that run 
along below the hive where I sit and write 
these lines. 

The phone rings and my little Nancy 
Lou's voice says, "Daddy, will you please 
bring me a pencil and a tablet with lines 
on it." 

So I must needs stop this, whatever you 
may call it, and push through the crowd to 
get that tablet with "lines on it" for my 
Nancy Lou; and there is some feeling of 
happiness and content and peace in Daddy's 
heart as he lays down his pen, for Daddy 
is going Home, and that word means a lot 
in his little family, where they all say 
"Daddy" instead of Papa or Father. 



DOING THINGS TWICE 



A Common Habit That Saps Nerve 
Power 

It is hard enough to do duty once, but 
doubly hard when you anticipate mentally 
everything you have to do tomorrow. 

This doing things twice is a habit easily 
acquired if you don't watch out, and it 
means wasted energy. 

I have just read the experience of a house- 
wife who was resting on a couch reading; 
her eye caught sight of a book lying on the 
floor across the room. 

Instantly her mindometer, if I may coin 
a word, registered, "when you get up, pick 
up that book." 

She went on reading, but her mind was 
not on the magazine she held, but on that 
book on the floor. 

So obsessed did she become that she was 
miserable until she got up and picked up 
the book. 

I was talking with a woman who was 
resting on her porch; her day's work was 
over. She was dressed for the afternoon. 

34 



EVENING ROUND-UP 35 

Everything in the home was neat, sweet, 
clean and tidy. All serene but her face, 
and that was the window through which 
I saw worry working overtime. 

By strategy I learned the trouble, and 
here is her story: " Tomorrow a lot of 
fruit will be ready to preserve. I am worry- 
ing where I shall put it. My fruit closet 
is full." 

The woman had every reason to say to 
herself ' 'sufficient unto the day," yet she 
was doing the preserving mentally today 
and tomorrow she would do the work 
physically. 

A tired mind is harder to rest than a 
tired body, so we must nip this advance 
mental work in the bud. 

We have all had mental obsessions of 
worrying about the things we were going 
to take on our trip; then worrying over the 
routine of our work when we return from 
our trip. 

If the housewife looks over her week's 
work and washes the dishes, makes the 
beds, cooks the meals, dresses the children, 
mends the clothes, in her imagination, be- 
fore she does them in reality, she is indeed 
a hard working woman. 



36 EVENING ROUND-UP 

It's all right to plan your work; that's 
economy in mental expenditure, for it sim- 
plifies, systematizes, and saves work. 

Plan your work in advance, but do not 
keep your mind on the plans until the 
work is done. 

When you have planned, then close the 
mental book of tomorrow's duty, and turn 
to pleasures, rest, relaxation and enjoy- 
ment of today. 

These little round-ups we have each 
evening are fine to switch the thought cur- 
rent from tomorrow's duties. 

It is to get a definite, different thought 
habit fixed, that I ask you to give me these 
few minutes each day when we may con- 
sider various phases of life, science, pleasure, 
morals and mental refreshment. 

True we can only have a fleeting look at 
things, but we'll get enough, I hope, to 
freshen your minds, change the humdrum, 
and elicit interest in things. 

Maybe these round-ups we have will 
help us, and keep us from working mentally 
tomorrow's physical work. 

If these evening talks interest you, help 
clear your vision, help cheer you, help rest 
you, then they are good for you, and be- 



EVENING ROUND-UP 37 

cause they help you they certainly benefit 
me and make me very happy, because 
happiness comes from doing something for 
others. 

I write as the mood strikes me, or as a 
phase of life comes before me, or as an 
idea strikes in and just won't let go until 
I grasp my pen and let the words flow. 

I mean this book is human, and not a 
studied literary effort. 

Just get the human viewpoint and don't 
criticize the words used or the sentences I 
construct. 

I want to reach you right there alone in 
the room where you are reading this, and 
I want the suggestions, the good, the help, 
to soak in and I want you to pass the good 
you get to your brother; you won't lose a 
bit by so doing. 



NERVES 



The Doctors' Most Difficult 
Problem 

"She is all right — her only trouble is her 
NERVES." How often we hear that and 
how little does the person with steady 
nerves appreciate the tortures of "nerves." 

A cut, a bruise, a headache, or any of 
the physical ailments can be quickly cured. 
Nature will mend the break, but tired, 
worn, stretched, abused nerves take time to 
restore. These nerve ailments call for most 
vigorous mental treatment. 

Neurasthenia means debilitated or pros- 
trated nerves and it shows itself first of all 
by worry. Worry means the inability to 
relax the attention from a definite fear or 
fancied hard luck. Worry leads to many 
physical and mental disorders. 

Left alone this worry stage develops into 
an acute state and brings with it nervous 
prostration, and sometimes a complete 
collapse of the will power. 

Before the acute stage of neurasthenia 
is reached there is noticed "brain fag," 

38 



EVENING ROUND-UP 39 

and brain fag is nature's warning signal 
calling upon you to take notice and change 
your mental habits. 

Worry sometimes develops into hysteria; 
again it takes the form of hypochondria or 
chronic blues. The hypochondriac has a 
chronic, morbid anxiety about personal 
health and personal welfare. Frequently 
this state is accompanied by melancholia. 

Melancholia is the forks in the roads. 
One road leads to incurable insanity, the 
other to curable melancholia. Right here 
is where heroic action is needed by the 
sufferer. 

Here is where the sufferer must exert his 
will power, change completely his mental 
and physical habits and his surroundings. 
Occupation, changed habits, taking in of 
confidence, faith and courage thoughts — 
these changes are necessary to the victim 
of melancholia, or he will shatter on the 
danger rocks and go to pieces. 

Melancholia is where is offered a good 
chance for Christian Science. Mental sug- 
gestion, powerful personality of a friend, 
and the personal help such a friend can 
give by counsel, example and suggestion, 
are all helps. 



40 EVENING ROUND-UP 

I have abundant evidence that melan- 
cholia sufferers can be restored to peace, 
efficiency and poise, by proper thought direc- 
tion, and by proper physical employment. 

"Pep," which has principally to do with 
mental efficiency, definitely lays down rules 
and practical suggestions for the employ- 
ment of the mind and body. I have letters 
and verbal proofs in quantity proving the 
efficiency of those rules and suggestions. 

So wonderful have been the results, so 
numerous the recoveries, that the testi- 
monials, if published, would make the fake 
nerve tonic manufacturer die of envy. 

"Only your nerves." I cannot under- 
stand why the word, only, is used. It 
makes it appear that nerves are of minor 
importance. 

Nerves are less understood than anything 
in the human anatomy. 

Experience has proved that nerves can- 
not be restored by dope, patent medicines, 
tonics or prescriptions. 

The cure must come by and through the 
individual possessing the nerves and by 
and through the individual's power of will 
and mastery of the mind. 

Get the mental equipment right. Let 



EVENING ROUND-UP 41 

the mind master the body. Let the nerve 
sufferer get hold of himself and fill his brain 
with faith thought instead of fear thought, 
with courage instead of cowardice, with 
strength instead of weakness, with hope 
instead of despair, with smiles instead of 
frowns, with occupation instead of slug- 
gishness, and wonders will appear. 

The little shredded, tingling nerve ends 
will then commence to synchronize instead 
of fight, to harmonize instead of discord, 
to build instead of destroy. 

The building, or coming back to a normal 
state, is slow; it takes time, patience and 
will power, but it can be done. I know. 
I have been through the mill, and I pass 
the word to you and try to stir you to be 
up and doing, even as I did. 

Your nerves can be steadied, your 
thoughts uplifted, your health restored, 
your ambition re-established, your nor- 
mality fixed. 

Smiles, love and content are to be yours. 
Poise, efficiency, peace, your blessings. 
Health, happiness and hope your dividends. 
All these I promise you if you will read 
carefully this book from cover to cover 
and follow its plain, practical teachings. 



42 EVENING ROUND-UP 

The curriculum is not hard, it is not my 
discovery. I am merely the purveyor of 
facts, the gleaner of truth, and the selector 
of helpful experiences, first of all for my 
own benefit and having proved the truth 
in my own case and by friends to whom I 
passed the truths and rules. 

I made bold to write books, but the 
writing has paid me well, not alone in 
dollars, but from having done a helpful 
thing in writing for other humans who 
have had problems, worries and nerves. 

The big books on nerves are discouraging 
and forbidding by their immensity and 
labyrinth of scientific technical terms. They 
are fine for teachers, but discouraging for 
the layman. 

The great everyday crowd is the class I 
want to talk to and so I endeavor to write 
in plain human, sincere style from heart to 
heart, with understanding, feeling, charity 
and sympathy. 

I have felt the things you feel, and if I 
can by example, emphasis, suggestion, rule 
or good intent, be a help to you, then I 
have done a service. 

Don't worry or criticize this book. Take 
my suggestions in the spirit offered. 



PESSIMISTS 



Give Them the Cold Shoulder 

The calamity howler is found in the 
midst of peace and plenty. This pessimist 
sows seeds of discord, plants envy, generates 
the anarchist spirit, and is an all-around 
nuisance. 

A man may spend years erecting a 
building; a fiend can demolish it in a 
minute with a stick of dynamite. 

The calamity howler is a destroyer; he 
doesn't think, he spurts out words. His 
words and arguments are simply parrot 
mimicry and void of intellectual impulse, as 
are the movements of an angle worm. 

These peace destroyers talk of their 
rights and they expect and demand the 
same privileges and benefits that are earned 
by the man who uses his head. 

These ghouls are born without heads; 
they just have necks that grow up and are 
covered with hair. These brainless mol- 
lusks are now telling the people that the 
Sultan of Sulu is to capture Texas and that 
Japan is to invade Indianapolis; Germany 

43 



44 EVENING ROUND-UP 

is to capture Quebec, and France is to 
siege Milwaukee. 

The howlers spread talk of yellow peril 
and black plague to follow. They spread 
doubt and fear; they tell you the capitalists 
are awake nights trying to starve you and 
that they employ inventors to discover new 
methods of torture for the poor working 
man. 

They accuse business men of grinding 
down the farmer, forming pools, establish- 
ing starvation prices, and ruining agri- 
culture. Yet, as I write these lines, fat 
beef cattle sell for $10.00 a hundred on 
the hoof, wheat is way over $1.00 a bushel, 
and good farms in Missouri even are selling 
at from $100.00 to $150.00 per acre. 

Good farm mortgages are hard to get. 
The farmers have money in the banks, 
honey in the house, and automobiles in the 
garage. 

Our taxes in the United States are lower 
than anywhere on the face of the earth. 
Our wages are higher than anywhere in the 
world. Our schools better, our oppor- 
tunities greater. 

And in the midst of better conditions 
and brighter prospects the shameless, brain- 



EVENING ROUND-UP 45 

less, fameless bipeds pollute the atmos- 
phere, poison hearts and plant discontent. 

If these howlers are any better than foot- 
pads, thieves, grave robbers, or child 
beaters, I can't see it. 

And it is up to you and to me to de- 
nounce these peace destroyers, ridicule 
them, show our contempt for them; they 
have no hearts, no souls, they are only 
decay spots that spread rottenness, disease, 
despair, discouragement, contamination and 
anarchy, and we do not want such guests 
at our quilting parties or husking bees. 



GLOOM CONTAGION 



A Little Study of Faces in a Street 
Car 

This evening I rode home in a crowded 
street car. What an interesting study to 
watch the faces in that car. 

Discontent, discomfort, worry, gloomi- 
ness on nearly every face. Tired faces, 
tired bodies from a hard day's work, 
mouth corners drooped. Hopelessness 
stamped on the countenances. 

As the people came in the car some of 
them had smiles or at least passable expres- 
sions, but when they got crowded together 
and saw the gloomy faces the gloom spread 
to their faces, too. 

At a picnic all are smiling and laughing. 
In the street car at six o'clock the long 
procession of workers is a stream of solemn 
faces. Contagion, example, surrounding, 
yes, that's it — contagion and example. 

At six o'clock in the cars all is gloom, 
blueness and sorrow faces. At eight o'clock 
many of these faces will be changed; there 
will be joy, smiles, rosiness, singing and 

46 



EVENING ROUND-UP 47 

dancing. Yet the actual conditions of 
finance, health, hope or prospects haven't 
changed since these people were in the car 
at six o'clock. 

Why then such a change in two hours? 

It is this: at seven o'clock these workers 
sat down to supper, they were out of that 
gloom-reflected street car atmosphere. Now 
they are talking, they are rounding-up the 
day's activities; they are HOME with 
mother, sister, brother and the kiddies. 
The home ones greet them with smiles, the 
appetizing supper pleases the palate, good 
cheer permeates, and all is smiles and joy. 

Gloom spreads gloom. Joy spreads joy. 
Gloom is black; joy is white. One darkens, 
the other brightens. 

Well, then, where's the moral? What's 
the benefit from this little study of the 
street car passengers? 

The lesson is plain: it is that you and I 
are ferments of joy or acids of gloom. We 
are influences to help or to hurt. To hurt 
others by our example hurts us. To help 
others by our example helps us. We be- 
come happier than ever. 

In the street car life was not worth living 
if you judged by the pained faces. In two 



48 EVENING ROUND-UP 

hours by changed thought the example of 
life was worth while. 

What changes the mental attitude makes. 

"When a man has spent 
His very last cent — 
The world looks blue, you bet; 
But give him a dollar 
And loud he will holler 
There's life in the old world yet." 

Next time we get on the street car let's 
plant some smiles. Let's give that lady a 
seat and smile when we do it. 

We can spread cheer by merely wearing 
a cheery face. Costs little, pays big. 
Let's do it. 



HAPPINESS 



Hovers Near Us If We Do Not 
Chase It 

Some of our richest blessings are gained 
by not striving for them directly. This is 
so true that we accept the blessings without 
thinking about how we came to get them. 

Particularly true is this in the matter of 
happiness. Everyone wants to be happy, 
but few know how to secure this blessing. 

Most people have the idea that the pos- 
session of material things is necessary to 
happiness and that idea is what keeps 
architects, automobile makers, jewelers, 
tailors, hotels, railroads, steamships and 
golf courses busy. 

Do your duty well, have a worth-while 
ambition, be a dreamer, have an ideal. 
Keep your duty in mind, be occupied 
sincerely with your work, keep on the road 
to your ideal and happiness will cross your 
path all the while. 

Happiness is an elusive prize; it's wary, 
timid, alert and cannot be caught. Chase 
it and it escapes your grasp. 

49 



50 EVENING ROUND-UP 

I read today of a friend who walked 
home with a workman. This is the work- 
man's story: He had a son who was mak- 
ing a record in school. He had two daugh- 
ters who helped their mother; he had a 
cottage, a little yard, a few flowers, a 
garden. He worked hard in a garage by 
day and evenings he cultivated his flowers, 
his garden, and his family. He had health, 
plus contentment a-plenty. His possessions 
were few and the care of them consequently 
a negligible effort. 

Happiness flowed in the cracks of his 
door. Smiles were on his lips, joy in his 
heart, love in his bosom; that's the story 
my friend heard. 

Then came a friend in an automobile on 
his way home from the club. He picked 
up my friend and to him a tale of woe, 
misery and discontent did unfold. 

This club man had money, automobiles, 
social standing, possessions, and all the 
objects and material things envious persons 
covet — yet he was unhappy. His whole 
life was spent chasing happiness, but his 
sixty horsepower auto wasn't fast enough 
to catch it. 

The poor man I have told you about 



EVENING ROUND-UP 51 

was the man who washed the club man's 
auto. 

The strenuous pleasure seeker fails to get 
happiness; that is an inexorable law. He 
develops into a pessimist with an acrid, 
satirical disgust at all the simple, worth- 
while, real things in life. 

This is not a new discovery of mine; it's 
an old truth. Read Ecclesiastes, the pessi- 
mistic chronicle of the Bible, and you'll find 
what comes to the pleasure-chaser, and you 
will know about "vanity and vexation of 
spirit." 

Do something for somebody. Engage in 
moves and enterprises that will be a service 
to the community and help the uplift of 
mankind. This making others happy is a 
positive insurance and guarantee of your 
own happiness. 

You must keep a stiff upper lip, a stiff 
backbone; you must forget the wishbone 
and the envious heart. 

Paul had trials, setbacks, hardships and 
hard labors; he had defeats and discourage- 
ments and still the record shows he was 
"always rejoicing." 

Paul was a man of Pep. In the dungeon 
with his feet in stocks he sang songs and 



52 EVENING ROUND-UP 

rejoiced. Paul was happy, ever and always, 
not because he strove to get happiness, but 
because he had dedicated his life to a service 
to mankind. 

The real hero, the real man of fame, the 
real man of popularity, doesn't arrive 
through direct quest, for any of these 
things; the result is incidental. 

The real hero forgets self first of all; that 
is the essential step to greatness. 

Washington at Valley Forge had no 
thought that his acts there would furnish 
inspiration for a picture that would endure 
for generations. 

Lincoln, the care-worn, tired noble man, 
in his speech at Gettysburg, never dreamed 
that speech would stamp him as a master 
of words and thought, in the hearts of his 
countrymen. He thought not of self. He 
was trying to soothe wounds, cheer troubled 
spirits, and give courage to those who had 
been so long in shadowland. 

Ever has it been that fame, glory, happi- 
ness are rewards, given not to those who 
strive to capture, but to those who strive 
to free others from their troubles, burdens 
and problems. 



THOUGHT CONTROL 



44 As a Man Thinketh in His Heart 
so is He" 

A little child is crying over a real or 
fancied injury to her body or to her pride. 

So long as she keeps her mind on the 
subject she is miserable. 

Distract her attention, get her mind on 
another subject, and her tears stop and 
smiles replace frowns. 

This shows how we are creatures of our 
thoughts. "As a man thinketh in his 
heart, so is he" is a truth that has endured 
through the centuries. 

We are children in so far as we cry and 
suffer when we think of our ills or hurts or 
wrongs or bad luck. 

We can smile and have peace, poise and 
strength if we change our thoughts to faith, 
courage and confidence. 

Our condition is what we make it. If we 
think fear, worry and misery, we will 
suffer. If we think faith, peace and happi- 
ness, we will enjoy life. 

Every thought that comes out of our 
brain had to go in first. 

52 



54 EVENING ROUND-UP 

If we feed our brain storehouse with 
trash and fear, and nonsense, we have a 
poor material to draw from. 

The last thought we put in the brain 
before going to sleep is most likely to last 
longest. So it is our duty to quietly relax, 
to slow down — to eliminate fear-thought, 
self -accusation, and to substitute some good 
helpful thought in closing the mental book 
of each day. 

Therefore read a chapter or two from a 
worth-while book the last thing before 
going to bed. 

Say to yourself, "I am unafraid; I can, 
I will awake in the morning with smiles on 
my face, courage in my heart, and song on 
my lips." 

These suggestions for closing the day 
will be of instant help to you. 

The great power for good, the where- 
with to give you strength, progress and 
efficiency is within yourself and at the 
command of your will. 

You can't think faith and fear, good and 
bad, courage and defeat, all at the same 
time. 

You can only think one thing at a time. 

Your great power is your will, and the 



EVENING ROUND-UP 55 

wherewith to help yourself is your thought 
habit. 

Change your thought habit as you go 
to bed. You can do it; it's a matter of will 
determination. The more faithful you are 
to your purpose, the easier your task will 
be. Be patient, conscientious rational and 
confident. 

You are what your thoughts picture you 
to be. Your will directs your thoughts. 

Don't get discouraged if you can't sud- 
denly change your life from shadow to sun- 
shine, from illness to wellness. 

Big things take time and patience. The 
great ship lies in the harbor pointed North. 
A tug boat could make a sudden pull and 
break the great chain or tow line. 

Yet you could take a half-inch rope and 
with your own hands turn the great ship 
completely around by pulling steadily and 
patiently. The movement would be slow, 
but it would be sure and you would finally 
accomplish your purpose. 

Don't jerk and fret and be impatient with 
yourself. You have been for years perhaps 
worrying and thinking fear-thoughts. You 
have put a lot of useless and harmful 
material in your brain. 



56 EVENING ROUND-UP 

You can't clean all your brain house in a 
day or a week, but you can do a little 
cleaning each day. 

You can take the faith rope of good 
purpose and start to pull gently, and 
finally you will turn your whole life's 
character toward the port of success. 

If you have read "Pep" and followed its 
rules, you are now in a state of poise, 
efficiency and peace, and realize the truths 
of this chapter, for you learned in detail 
the rules for your daily conduct, practice, 
and how to apply suggestions. 

The great crowd worries; only the few 
have learned the power of the will, and the 
benefits to be derived from mental control. 

Business and social duties call for strong 
men and women. You can't reach master- 
ship if you remain a slave. 

Your first duty is to yourself, and success 
or failure is your reward exactly in propor- 
tion as you exercise your will power and 
handle your thought habits. 



MEDICINE 



Proofs That Mind Control is the 
Best Medicine 

The doctors are giving less medicine and 
doing more in the way of suggesting diet, 
and exercise rules, sanitation and preventive 
practices. 

Medicine is mostly poison and its effect 
is to shock the organs or glands to bring 
about reaction. Nature makes the cure. 

In emergency drugs are all right, but the 
doctor and not the individual should settle 
the matter of what drug to use and the 
time to use it. 

When there's a pain or disease it's due 
to congestion of some organ, to infection, 
or to improper nourishment or improper 
habits. 

Ninety per cent of the aches, pains or 
ailments can be cured by a dominant 
mental attitude and attention to eating and 
exercise. 

The habitual medicine user is not cured 
by the medicine but by nature ; the medicine 
simply serves as a means to establish men- 

57 



58 EVENING ROUND-UP 

tal control and confidence that the suf- 
ferer is to get well. 

Recently I have spent much time in a 
large hospital visiting a relative, who had 
been operated on. I know several of the 
staff of doctors and nurses. 

I have seen many operations, some very 
heroic ones, and my appreciation of the 
good work of good surgeons is greatly 
augmented by the wonderful helps I have 
seen them bring to suffering humanity. 
I have talked with and watched the cases 
of scores of patients. 

I have by plausible logic, mental sug- 
gestion, and good cheer to the hospital 
patients, brought many a smile through a 
mist of tears. 

I have seen wonderful results of mental 
suggestion to the discouraged patients. 

To show the effects faith thought will 
produce, I will relate some instances. 

One patient screaming for a hypodermic 
injection to relieve her pain was given an 
injection of sterilized water and the pain 
vanished. 

Another just could not sleep without her 
bromide. The nurse fixed up a powder of 
sugar, salt and flour, the patient took the 



EVENING ROUND-UP 59 

powder and went to sleep. That was mind 
control and mental longing satisfied. 

Another patient had to take something 
to stop her pains; she got capsules of 
magnesia. The capsule satisfied her long- 
ing, established her faith and gave her 
relief; the relief was through her mind and 
not by the capsule. 

I have seen several weary, despondent 
patients fretting and wearing themselves 
out over their so-called weakness and con- 
dition. I have placed copies of "Pep" in 
their hands and watched courage, faith, 
cheer and sereneness come to them. 

The reading of "Pep" diverted their 
minds from self-thought and self-accusa- 
tion to faith-thought and courage. 

"Pep" is simply pov/erful common-sense, 
practical, digestible, hope, faith, cheer and 
courage. One brain cannot at the same 
time hold its attention on faith and fear, 
on joy or sorrow, on smiles and tears. 

You can only think one thing at a time, 
and "Pep" or any other book that can 
change the habit thought from fear to faith, 
from worry to peace, is doing a service. 

I've been in shadowland in the hospital 
to see for myself the actual help that mental 



60 EVENING ROUND-UP 

control will bring to sufferers and the 
evidence is far above my powers to describe. 

I'm mighty glad I wrote "Pep" for it 
has helped many a brother and sister out 
of darkness into sunshine, and proved the 
value of right thinking and mental control. 

I've seen the lifting up of a patient's 
hope, when the cheery surgeon came with 
hope, smiles and confidence on his face. 

I've seen the drooping of spirits when 
well meaning but poor expressing friends 
came into the patient's room and condoned 
and sorrowed with the patient. 

Verily "as a man thinketh in his heart, 
so is he." 

Verily good cheer and good thought are 
good medicines. 

And to these truths all good doctors 
say "Amen!" 



READING 



Let Your Final Evening's Reading 
be Good Stuff 

When you spend the evening playing 
cards, the chances are you come home late, 
and when you retire it takes perhaps an 
hour or so before you fall to sleep. 

And during the night you dream of 
cards, of certain hands, of certain circum- 
stances, or certain persons, that were promi- 
nent in the evening's game. 

The reason you do not go to sleep after 
an exciting evening is because you have 
set your nerve carburetor at high tension 
and forgotten to lower it before you go to 
sleep. 

On the other hand, when you have been 
reading a restful book, full of good thought, 
you establish an equilibrium, a relaxed 
state of nerves and particularly you have 
switched the current or direction of your 
day's thoughts. That change spells rest, 
and you retire and go to sleep easily. 

In "Pep" one of the most beneficial sug- 
gestions was that you read its chapters one 

61 



62 EVENING ROUND-UP 

or two each evening, after you had un- 
dressed, and just before going to bed. 

You will scarcely believe what a wondrous 
change for the better will happen to you if 
you make it a rule to have a brain clearing, 
mental inventory, and nerve relaxation 
every night before you sleep. 

Your brain works at night always; oft- 
times you have no remembrance of your 
dreams, but if your last hour, before retir- 
ing, was an hour of excitement, tension or 
unusual occupation you will likely go over 
it all again in your dreams. 

If you will let nothing prevent your 
period of soliloquy, or evening round-up, 
you will establish your mental habits into 
a rhythm that will give you peace, rest 
and benefit. 

In the olden days, when most families 
had evening worship or family prayers, the 
members of those households slept soundly 
and restfully. 

Particularly was this so because of the 
habit formed of getting the mind on peace- 
ful, helpful, comforting, soul -satisfying 
thoughts that remained fresh on the brain 
tablets as the members of the home circle 
went to sleep. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 63 

One of the common practices in the home 
circle is reading, and generally the books 
or papers read are of the exciting, fascinat- 
ing, highly colored imaginative type ; people 
read stories of love, adventure, plot or 
crime, and they dream these same things 
most every night. 

I have found that it pays to read two 
classes of literature in the same evening. 
First read your novel, story or fascinating 
book, and fifteen minutes before you are 
ready to go to sleep, read some good, 
wholesome, helpful, uplifting book, and that 
good stuff will be lastingly filed away in 
your brain. 

Finish your evening with books that are 
interesting, yet educational. Such books as 
"Life of the Bee" by Maeterlinck, or any 
one of Fabre's wonderful books on insect 
life; "Riddle of the Universe," by Haeckle; 
Darwin's books; Drummond's "Ascent of 
Man;" "Walks and Talks in Geological 
Fields" is a splendid mental night cap; 
"Power of Silence ;" "Physiology of Faith and 
Fear;" Emerson's "Essays; "Holmes' "Auto- 
crat of the Breakfast Table;" Rubaiyat 
of Omar Khayyam; Tom Moore's Poems; 
"Plutarch's Lives;" "Seneca;" "Addison;" 



64 EVENING ROUND-UP 

Bulwer Lytton; Hugo; Carlyle's "Sartor 
Resartus." This latter book will not fasci- 
nate you like Carlyle's "French Revolu- 
tion/' but you will learn to love its fine 
language, its fine analysis of character, of 
times, and of things. 

There are countless books of the good 
improving kind. Always save one of them 
for your solid reading, after you have read 
light literature or novels. If you will get 
the habit you will notice great benefits and 
rapid advancement in your mental appa- 
ratus. 

You will sleep better, think clearer; you 
will learn to enjoy mental pleasures more 
than material pleasures. 

Fifteen minutes then to be yours, yours 
alone, in which you quiet, soothe, strengthen 
and pacify yourself and add abundant 
resources and assets. 

Let the last reading in the evening be 
something worth storing up in that precious 
brain of yours and the good worth-while 
deposit will grow and produce beautiful 
worth-while mental fruit. 



VERBOMANIA 



A Widely Prevalent Modern Disease 

The malady Verbomania is spreading 
rapidly. What's that? You have never 
heard of Verbomania? Well, then, it's 
taken from verbosus, the Latin word mean- 
ing abounding in words, the using of more 
words than is necessary. Mania, also 
Latin, means to rage — excessive or un- 
reasonable desire; therefore, Verbomania is 
the excessive desire to use more words than 
are necessary. 

There is too much talk nowadays and 
too little thinking. Some persons start 
their gab carburetors and they talk and 
talk mechanically, without any effort on 
any thought, just like walking, the motion 
just goes by itself. 

Scientists have suggested that perhaps 
too much talking without thinking is a 
disease. I don't see why there is any 
perhaps about it. Disease is an unnatural 
condition, or function out of its natural 
order of working. 

We know we can sit down and run ideas 

65 



66 EVENING ROUND-UP 

through our brain without words and we 
can use a lot of words without ideas. 

You have read whole pages in a book 
without receiving an idea. One can rattle 
off words and not have ideas. When the 
fountain of words flows in a desert of 
ideas, it's Verbomania. 

People in all walks of life have the 
disease; they talk together too much with- 
out any reason other than to take up time 
or make themselves at ease. 

Pink teas, receptions and society func- 
tions are great rookeries for these Verbo- 
mania birds to gather and indulge in their 
gabfest. 

The pianist through long practice is 
able to play a difficult composition with- 
out thinking about it; it's automatic; it's 
habit in action. 

The society dodo bird is just as dexterous 
in spinning words without thought, as the 
pianist with his difficult piece. 

Our rapid mode of living, our conven- 
tions and customs are responsible for much 
of the Verbomania. 

I should like to take my Dictophone to 
a fussy "afternoon" and record the word 
evacuations, the footless conversation, the 



EVENING ROUND-UP 67 

forced pleasantries, the set sentences that 
mingle into a hum and buzz. A wilderness 
of words in a barrenness of ideas. 

This useless abuse of the use of speech 
makes headaches, weariness, worry, unrest; 
it saps strength, lowers pep, and lessens 
resistance. 

The cure for Verbomania is to keep away 
from these butterfly buzz bees; put the 
clothes-pin of caution on your lips; spend 
more time alone with your thoughts. Nour- 
ish your idea plants that have been starved ; 
prune your word plants. 

Read the first few chapters of "PEP," 
particularly the chapter in the book about 
solitude and sizing up things. 

Don't expose yourself to the crowds 
where the Verbomaniacs gather. The dis- 
ease is contagious; it's easy to acquire and 
hard to retire. 

These are ideas put in type to convey a 
truth for the benefit of all who read these 
lines, and it is some truth, too. 



HOME 



Don't Mistake a House for a Home 

Love builds homes, gold builds houses. 
The home has a mongrel dog which is 
called Prince, and all the family love it. 
The house had a pedigreed bull pup that 
is kept in the barn. 

There is all the difference between the 
family which has a home and the family 
which has a house. 

In houses we find broken hearts, worry, 
nervous prostration, because there is idle- 
ness, artificiality and aimlessness. In homes 
we find warm hearts, happiness and love, 
because those in the home have natural, 
helpful occupation. 

In the house is cold reserve ; the occupants 
read when compelled to stay in doors; they 
grow crabbed and cross and get into a 
state of habitual dumbness and selfishness. 

In the home there is unselfishness, 
thoughtfulness, and love expressed. Meal 
time is joy time; it's the get-together period 
of smiling faces. 

In the house the breakfast table is merely 

68 



EVENING ROUND-UP 69 

a lunch station in the hurried trip from 
the bedroom to the office. 

The sensitive wife of the house gets 
stinging remarks that abide with her after the 
lord and master of the house has departed. 

In the home the family gets up plenty 
early enough, songs and jokes, kisses and 
love pats are found, the family is on time, 
and there is happiness all around. 

Homes are sweet, because love is present. 
Houses built by gold are just hotels. 

I've noticed the difference when a friend 
invites me to come to his home or his house ; 
the word he uses, home or house, indicates 
to me what I will find when I go there. 

In the house I meet a maid or butler at 
the door. I see conventional furniture, 
conventional rooms. I am shown into a 
conventional waiting room, and I wait con- 
ventionally for the hostess to come forward 
with a stiff backbone, a forced smile, and a 
languid hand shake. 

When I go to a home built with love, I 
find a tidy dressed wife at the door, rosy 
children, and I get a warm old-fashioned 
hand clasp, and a beaming smiling face 
that spells welcome. 

And the dinner, that too, tells the differ- 



70 EVENING ROUND-UP 

ence between the "depend-on-the-cook" 
housewife and the "wife-who-is-the-boss" 
home. 

At the house is formality and frigidity; 
at the home is ease and enjoyment. The 
children of the home make breaks and we 
love them for it; it's natural instinct and 
frankness. 

In the house is worry; in the home is 
happiness. 

Verily there's a difference in the atmos- 
phere of the house built with gold and the 
home built with love; one is worthless 
existence, the other worth-while living. 



DIET RULES 



Seven Sensible Simple Suggestions 
on Eating 

I haven't time in this book to give reasons 
or show proofs for everything I suggest. I 
have explained much in detail regarding 
the matter of food, thought, habit and 
exercise in PEP, but I want right here to 
give you a few definite, short, positive, 
helpful rules that will pay you most wonder- 
ful dividends in health and happiness. 

First — Drink two or three glasses of 
warm, not hot water the first thing when 
you arise. 

Second — Repeat this resolve as you are 
drinking the water, "I will be pleasant this 
morning until ten o'clock and the rest of 
the day will take care of itself." 

Third — Walk to your office or place of 
business unless it is over four miles, in 
which case walk the first three miles and 
ride the remainder of the distance. 

Fourth — Eat one or two apples every 
day, and do not insult nature's proper 
adjustment by peeling the apple. You 

7i 



72 EVENING ROUND-UP 

want the skin because it has things in it 
you need for your body, and especially for 
your brain, and you need especially the 
roughage the skin gives. 

Fifth — Spend eight or nine hours a day 
in bed. I belong to the sixty-three hour 
club; that means nine hours a day rest, 
seven days in a week, which is sixty-three 
hours. If through business travel or other 
circumstances I stay up late one or two 
nights a week, I balance books before the 
week is up by taking a rest on Sunday 
afternoon or going to bed earlier one or 
two nights. 

Sixth — Don't stay in bed Sunday morn- 
ing. It will make you tired, loggy, stupid 
and cross. Get up Sunday, say, a half 
hour or an hour later than week days. 
Later in the day take a nap if you wish. 

Seventh — Spend fifteen minutes just be- 
fore going to bed in quiet, relaxed solitude. 
This is the time to slow down your tension, 
relax your muscles and soothe the nerves. 
These rules you can easily remember and 
if you follow them as I hope you will, the 
red blood will course in your veins and 
joy will be in your countenance and the 
halo of happiness will be around your face. 



NEGATIVE ATTITUDE 



A Frequent Crossed Current That 
Makes Misery 

Every once in a while the human has a 
negative day. Every act, thought, or 
spoken sentence has a but, a don't, a can't, 
or some other negative attachment to it. 

The children laugh, play and cut up in 
the morning and mother says, "I don't 
know what I shall do with you, you are 
just wearing me out." This puts a fear 
thought and a weakness germ both in 
mother and the kiddies. 

On Sunday afternoon the family is rest- 
ing; mother maybe gets the blues, and says, 
' 'What's the use, I never get anywhere, 
go any place, it's just grind, work and worry 
all the time." 

Mother worries because there's a leak in 
the roof and the water stained the paper 
in the spare room. She worries because 
she lives in a rented house and says, "I 
have no heart to fix things up because this 
is a rented house." 

This negative thought indulged in brings 

73 



74 EVENING ROUND-UP 

on a misery state; it's worry, and the 
worry comes because you dwell on the off 
side of things. You rehearse your problem, 
you go over your work, you count your 
obstacles and pile up the negative and fear 
thoughts. 

Bless you, my dear sister, I know what 
this negative can't, don't, but, and what's 
the-use thought is and how it brings misery. 
I know how the children get on your nerves 
and make you say, "don't," all day to them. 

There's only one way to drive out this 
negative thought and that is to switch 
your will power to the positive current. 

Next time you have a negative day and 
the fear thoughts come, just start in one 
by one and count your blessings of health, 
blessings of home, and blessings of love. 

Nothing can hurt you. You've been 
through these negative days time and time 
again; the clouds gathered, you were blue, 
lonesome, homesick and heartsick, but next 
day you got busy with work, and occupation 
drove away the clouds and the sunshine 
came. The next Sunday you get in this 
negative state, just put on your hat and 
go out to see some neighbor or go to the 
park or take a walk. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 75 

Don't sit and stew and fret over your 
magnified troubles. 

Let the children play and laugh; they are 
not hurting anyone. God bless them. 
They don't have worries, their little lives 
are all too short. Their example of smiles 
and laughter should make you happy. 
Soon, too soon, they will grow up and go 
their ways in life and how precious will be 
the memories of their carefree, golden, 
happy childhood days. 

Cut out envy; that's a mighty bad 
negative wire. It's the devil's favorite 
food to make worry and discontent. 

Many of the people you envied in the 
past are dead and buried. Many of the 
people you envy now are at heart miserable, 
and you wouldn't envy them if you could 
look through the artificial outside and know 
their real hidden thoughts and lives. 

"What's-the-use;" that's a bad thing to 
say, it plants worry seed. 

You are all right, you have far more 
blessings than sorrows. You can never be 
free from troubles, cares or little irritations. 

Rise superior to these things; those 
around you are affected and susceptible to 
your influence and example. 



76 EVENING ROUND-UP 

If you have a "but," and "if," a "don't," 
tied to every command to your children, 
they will recognize your uncertainty and 
your negative hurtful attitude, and they 
will take your threats, as well as your 
promises, with a grain of salt. 

Be careful in giving commands; don't 
put a Spanish bit in the children's mouths 
to jerk them and torture them. 

Be positive, make your promises and 
orders stick, and the kiddies will soon know 
you mean what you say. 

These negative "driving me crazy" sen- 
tences and attachments to your commands 
spell weakness and make you drive, cajole 
and spin out your orders and the children 
hesitate, and are slow to obey. 

Let them see your positive side. Let them 
learn to obey with a "yes, mamma" spirit 
and your orders will be less frequent, shorter 
and they will be obeyed on the instant. 

The kiddies learn to size you up, mamma, 
and if they see a wobbly, worried, de- 
spondent, unsure attitude in you, they will 
discount your threats and make allowances, 
saying "that's mamma's way." 

Don't show your cry side but show your 
smile side. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 77 

Sunday is a great trial day for you, 
mamma, but don't let your negative wires 
get the best of you. 

Sing as you make the beds and tidy up; 
let sunshine in and drive out the gloom. 

Blue Sundays are horror days for the 
children; you can't expect them to sit still 
like older folks. They are full of red blood 
and active muscles. 

Don't make Sunday a day of punishment 
to your children. They get their cue from 
you. Don't you be negative and cross, and 
gloomy. It's bad business for you and all 
the family. 



WALKING 



The Best Exercise I Know of 

The benefits of walking are so quickly- 
apparent that I hope to get you to make 
the start and keep it up for two weeks, and 
then you will require no further urging. 

In walking there are two things most 
important to do in order to get the great- 
est benefits: first — walk alone; second — 
walk your natural gait. 

So many people tell me they would like 
to walk all, or part of the way, between 
their home and office if they had company. 

Company is the very thing you don't 
want in walking, and there are two reasons 
for this: one is if you walk with a friend 
you will hold yourself back, or else you will 
be walking faster than your natural gait, 
and in either case it is a conscious effort, 
and this conscious effort to a large degree 
will cause you to lose much of the benefit 
from your walk. 

The most important reason, however, is 
that if you walk with a friend you are sure 

78 



EVENING ROUND-UP 79 

to talk and thus you are using your nervous 
energy and tiring your brain — the very 
thing you should rest. 

Walking gives you physical exercise which 
is absolutely necessary for health. It is 
the best exercise I know of because you 
do not overdo your strength. 

Walking is beneficial because when you 
walk alone you give your brain a rest. 
You cannot read the papers, you cannot 
talk, and your mental apparatus gets com- 
plete rest. 

As stated in PEP I walk from my home 
to my office, something less than four 
miles, and it takes me about an hour to 
make the trip. I walk through a beautiful 
park and every morning I see something 
new and interesting in bird and animal life, 
in the vegetation and in the geological 
formations through which I pass. 

I recommend that you walk anywhere 
from three to four miles in the morning. 

If your home is more than four miles 
from the office, walk three or four miles 
and then take the car. 

Do not walk home in the evening unless 
the walk is a short one. In the evening 
you are tired and you should conserve your 



80 EVENING ROUND-UP 

strength. In the morning you are fresh 
and the exercise comes to you at a time it 
is most needed. It will give you strength, 
courage and help to keep you in a good mood 
all day. 

I cannot too strongly emphasize the 
importance of walking alone, for then you 
have shifted your nerve energy from the 
dry cell battery of the brain to the magneto, 
which is the spinal cord. The spinal cord 
works automatically and it doesn't wear 
itself out. The brain tires if it uses its 
energy. 

In walking you use the thought and the 
brain impulse to start the magneto and 
then the spinal cord action is automatic. 

This automatic action of the spinal cord 
is a wise provision of nature to conserve 
strength. 

The spinal cord energy is what you might 
call automatic habit. 

For instance, in dressing and undressing 
yourself you will recall that you put on or 
take off your clothes in regular order with- 
out giving the matter any thought. It 
is just habit. 

If you wish to demonstrate the difference 
between the control of the physical body 



EVENING ROUND-UP 81 

by brain impulse and the spinal cord im- 
pulse, try this some morning: Start out 
on your walk, and mentally frame sentences 
like this as you walk, "right step, left 
step, right step, left step," and so on; 
give thought to each step you have taken 
and notice how tired you will be when you 
have gone half a mile. 

The next morning start to walk, walk 
naturally, give no thought to walking, keep 
your mind on the beauties of nature by 
which you are passing or in pleasant 
soliloquy and you will feel no fatigue. 

There isn't a bit of theory in this chapter; 
it is positive practical sense I have proved 
by my own experiences and by the experi- 
ences of everyone to whom I have made 
this suggestion of walking alone. 

The moral is this — walk every morning 
and walk ALONE. 



ELIMINATION 



The Body's Safety-First in Keeping 
Health 

The body is made up of billions of little 
cells. These individual cells are in a state 
of perpetual activity. They exhaust, wear 
away, break down with work and rebuild 
on food and rest. Every process of life — 
the beat of the heart, the throb of the brain 
in thought, the digestion of food, the 
excretion of waste — all are due to the 
activity of groups of highly specialized 
individual cells. 

Every cell uses up its own material and 
throws off poisonous by-products during 
activity. These by-products, or wastes, 
are very poisonous to the individual cell as 
well as to the entire organism. To get rid 
of this waste is one of the first duties of 
the system. 

It is with the body, made up of its count- 
less millions of individual cells, just as with 
a city and its myriad people: the sewage 
of the community must be collected and 
disposed of. The city forms its poisons 

*82 



EVENING ROUND-UP 83 

which we call sewage and the body its 
poisons, which we call excreta (or carbonic 
acid, urea, uric acid, faeces, etc.). It is no 
more important for a city to gather up 
and get rid of its poisonous sewage than 
for the animal organism to collect and 
excrete its cell-waste. Hence, the import- 
ance of maintaining normal and constant 
elimination throughout the body. 

Elimination is kept up by the alimentary 
tract, the kidneys, the skin, and the lungs. 

These four are the great pipe-line sewer- 
age systems so to speak, by which the body 
throws off its gaseous, liquid and solid 
poisons. 

The lungs momentarily strain carbonic 
acid out of the blood and throw it out in 
the expired air. They likewise exhale other 
noxious matters from the system. 

The alimentary tract throws off faeces, 
made up of the waste tissue from the whole 
system, especially the digestive organs, as 
well as indigestible and non-nutritious por- 
tions of the food. 

The kidneys strain out urea, uric acid, 
and certain other poisons from the blood 
and eject them through the urinary tract. 

Finally the skin likewise is an excretory 



84 EVENING ROUND-UP 

organ and exhales a very definite amount 
of gaseous and fluid waste in the course of 
each twenty-four hours. 

The skin throws off from a pint to two 
quarts of liquid each day in the form of vapor. 

Thus, to carry on normal elimination 
from the body, the breathing, digesting, 
urinary and cutaneous systems must be 
kept working normally. To impair the 
work of any of these is to retard bodily 
drainage. To insure that elimination is 
going on naturally it is necessary to secure 
perfect functioning of lungs, bowels, kidneys 
and the skin. 

Any stoppage in the process of elimina- 
tion means that some fault has crept into 
the work of one of these excretory systems. 
It must be plain now why a disorder of 
any one of these organs of elimination 
means so much more profound disturbance 
to the whole organization than merely 
disease in one structure; it means that 
waste products are retained which ought to 
be thrown out of the body; so straightway 
every cell in the body begins to be more or 
less affected. Some poisons disturb one 
organ more and some another, but in the 
end the whole body, must be affected. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 85 

Lack of exercise, bolting of food, eating 
soft, starchy things, failure to chew prop- 
erly, failure to get enough roughage, in- 
sufficient water, insufficient fruit, these are 
the general causes of stoppage in the 
elimination processes. 

Drink one or two glasses of warm, not 
hot, water first thing in the morning. 

Eat one or two apples, skins and all, 
every day. Eat toast, especially the crust, 
eat cracked wheat or whole wheat bread 
often. 

Exercise plenty. Keep cheerful, eat regu- 
larly. 

Very likely you eat too much. You don't 
need three big meals a day unless you work 
out doors at hard physical labor. 

Your body is an engine. No use to keep 
the boiler red hot and two hundred pounds 
of steam if your work is light. 

Good health depends upon proper assimi- 
lation and elimination as nature intended. 

Eat less, exercise more, you who work 
indoors. If you don't use this caution 
you are just slowly killing yourself. 



CONTINUOUS HAPPINESS 



An Impossible State, and It's Well 
It's So 

I am often asked, "Are you happy ALL 
the time?" My answer is no. 

A continuous state of happiness cannot 
be enjoyed by any human. There are no 
plans, no habits, no methods of living that 
will insure unbroken happiness. 

Happiness means periods or marking 
posts in our journey along life's road. 
These high points of bliss are enjoyed be- 
cause we have to walk through the low 
places between times. 

Continuous sunshine, continuous warm 
weather, continuous rest, continuous travel, 
continuous anything spells monotony. We 
must have variety. 

We need the night to make us enjoy the 
day, winter to make us enjoy summer, 
clouds to make us enjoy sunshine, sorrow 
to make us enjoy happiness. 

But, dear reader, mark this: we can be 
philosophical and have content, serenity 



EVENING ROUND-UP 87 

and poise between the happiness periods. 

When you get blue, or have dread or 
sorrow, or that undescribable something 
that makes you feel badly; when you have 
worry or trouble, then's the time to get 
hold of your thinking machinery, and modify 
the shadows that come across you. 

Occupation and focusing your thoughts 
on your blessings, these are the methods to 
employ. 

As long as you dwell upon your imagined 
or your real sorrows you will be miserable 
and the worries will magnify like gathering 
clouds in April. 

Take the stand of changing your thoughts 
to confidence, faith, and good cheer, and 
busy your hands with work. Think of the 
happiness periods you have had and know 
there is happiness dividends coming to you. 
Keep this sort of thought and with it useful 
occupation, and the sunshine will dispel the 
clouds in your thoughts like the sun dispels 
the April showers and brings about a more 
beautiful day because of the clouds and 
storms just passed. 

When trouble or sorrows come, sweeten 
your cup with sugar remembrances of joys 
youVe had and joys you are to have, 



88 EVENING ROUND-UP 

Envy no one; envy breeds worry. The 
person you would envy has his sorrows and 
shadows, too; you see him only when the 
sunlight is on the face, you don't see him 
when he is in shadowland. 

No, dear ones, I nor you, nor anyone on 
earth can have complete, unruffled, con- 
tinued happiness, but we can brace up and 
call our reserve will power, reason, and self- 
confidence to bear when we come to the 
marshy places along the road. We can 
pick our steps and get through the mire 
and sooner than we believe it possible we 
can get on the good solid ground; and as 
we travel, happiness will often come as a 
reward for our poise and patience. 

My friends say, "you always seem 
happy," and in that saying they tell a 
truth, for I am happy often, very, very 
often and between times I make myself 
seem to be happy. This making myself 
"seem to be happy" gives me serenity, 
contentment, fortitude, and the very "seem- 
ing" soon blossoms into a reality of the 
condition I seem to be in. 

You can be happy often and when you 
are not happy, just seem to be happy any- 
way; it will help you much. 



SELF ACCUSATION 



If You Do This You Will Always Be 
Miserable 

Many have the habit of keeping their 
minds on their weaknesses or their short- 
comings. 

If they read of some one doing a great 
thing or making a worth-while accomplish- 
ment they say, "I never could do such a 
thing." 

These persons are always saying, "I never 
have luck. I can't do this. I can't do 
that." 

Always knocking, always thinking can't 
instead of can, will make fear, irresoluteness, 
uncertainty and weakness of character. 

Saying "I can't, I haven't the ability, 
I am unlucky" and such like makes you 
weak and knocks out all chance for doing 
things. 

Nothing comes out of the brain that 
wasn't burned in by thought. If you accuse 
yourself, belittle your capacity, or drown 
your good impulses with doubt and self- 

89 



90 EVENING ROUND-UP 

accusation, you are putting away a lot of 
bad thought in your brain and no wonder you 
will lack in initiative, ambition and courage. 

To those who claim to be unlucky I want 
to say you are not unlucky, you simply lack 
pluck. 

You start at undertakings with a handi- 
cap of fear, and a made-up mind you can't 
accomplish. No one ever got anywhere 
with anything with such a millstone around 
his neck. 

Many a man has been whipped in a 
fight, defeated in a contest, or beaten at an 
undertaking, but he didn't show it or let 
the other fellow know it; he just kept on 
with a brave front and finally the other 
fellow quit, mistaking grim determination, 
pluck and perseverance for strength and 
victory. 

Ethan Allen with his handful of men 
was asked to surrender by the British 
general with his superior force. By all 
rights and rules of war Ethan was licked, 
but he didn't give in. He replied, "Sur- 
render h — 11; I've just commenced to fight." 
If Ethan had accused himself and said, "I 
can't whip that big bunch, there's no hope," 
he would have been whipped to a finish. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 91 

Don't show the enemy, or the world, 
your weakness. Don't admit anything im- 
possible that is capable of accomplishment. 

It's the "I can" man who wins. No man 
ever won a fight if he started out by saying, 
"I can't whip him, he is too much for me, 
I am no match for him, but I'll try." 

No person ever made success in business 
if he started in with uncertainty, lack of 
confidence and unbelief in his ability. 

Knock yourself and the world will accept 
you at your own estimate. Show streaks of 
yellow cowardice and the mob will pounce 
on you like a pack of hungry wolves. 

Accuse yourself, curse your luck, belittle 
your worth, be afraid, and you will remain 
a mere bump on a log, unnoticed, uninterest- 
ing, uninvited. 

The world welcomes men who do things. 
The world judges by outward appearances. 
If your heart is sick, if your courage is low, 
don't show it. Put up a stiff attitude and 
act with confidence and that attitude will 
carry you over many a pitfall and past 
many an obstacle. 

Show strength and the world will help 
you ; show weakness and the world will shun 
you. 



92 EVENING ROUND-UP 

You are prejudiced when it comes to 
judging yourself. You compare your weak- 
ness with your friends' strength and this com- 
parison is unfair ;it makes you lose confidence. 

Nothing hurts one worse than doubting 
one's own ability, assets, and character. 

When you find yourself experiencing 
doubt, or inability, or hard luck, turn 
square around and say "Begone, doubt; 
henceforth I have belief.' ' 

Suggest and say "I have ability; I have 
pluck and pluck means luck." 

Always express confidence, faith, cour- 
age, and cheer thoughts, whether you feel 
them or not. Do this heroically and per- 
sistently and soon the fear shadows and 
weakness feelings will leave you and you 
will be in reality strong, courageous, active, 
and you will do things you never thought 
possible. 

"As a man thinketh, so is he;" always 
remember that. 

Get hold of your thoughts; make your- 
self think up, and have faith and courage. 
Hold to your resolve and the whole world 
will change. You will prosper, you will 
have poise, and every once in a while 
happiness will come as a reward. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 93 

No man will be surprised at your com- 
plete change of attitude and character more 
than yourself. 

Your problems can only be solved by 
yourself. Friends can advise, I can suggest, 
but YOU must act. 

Henceforth never accuse yourself, never 
feel sorry for your condition or position, 
cut out fear thoughts, — be strong. 

Think faith, courage, cheer, confidence, 
and strength, and by-and-by the habit will 
be fixed, and natural. 

This is as certain truth as I have ever 
experienced. I know it. I've tried it. 
I've watched others and the results are 
always good. 

Don't be passive and forget this chapter. 
Start right this minute to THINK RIGHT. 

And you will never regret and never for- 
get this chapter of Self-accusation. 



WOMAN'S BEAUTY 



Every Woman Will Be Interested in 
These Pointers 

Sisters, it's your duty to keep your good 
looks as long as possible, and to do it you 
must spend time each and every day on 
the care of your face and hair. 

First of all, you must keep your skin 
clean, and that's a particular job. 

You have nearly thirty miles of pores in 
your body. These pores are sewers; they 
discharge in a healthy person nearly two 
pounds of waste material every day. 

If these pores are stopped up or clogged, 
the waste material is secreted in the skin. 

The stopped pores secrete the greasy 
waste matter. This greasy substance at- 
tracts dirt, dust and germs, and soon 
blackheads, pimples or blotched skin will 
result. 

Washing the skin with strong soap is not 
good. 

To keep the skin clear and healthy you 
should massage it with cold cream and rub 
gently but thoroughly. This rubbing or 

94 



EVENING ROUND-UP 95 

massage quickens circulation, strengthens 
the little capillary veins and brings that 
beautiful pink glow that is so attractive. 

The cold cream softens the dry waste 
secretion and makes it easier to come out. 

After the cold cream application, rub all 
the grease off with a rough towel. 

Don't forget the daily massage; it will 
work wonders in your appearance. It will 
help give you that fresh, healthy appear- 
ance nature intends the fair sex to have. 

Don't be afraid of the sun. Tan is health 
to the skin and tan with pink shades be- 
neath it is a pretty combination. 

In washing the hair do not use any com- 
pound that has ammonia in it. Ammonia 
will bring on the gray hairs. 

Occasionally you must wash the hair with 
soap, but let the soap be mild. 

Raw eggs make an excellent shampoo or 
hair cleaner. The egg does not take out 
the natural oil necessary to good hair health. 

Glycerine and water and lanoline makes 
a good wash ; after using rinse the hair with 
hot soft water to get out all the glycerine 
and lanoline. 

Rub the roots of the hair frequently with 
the ends of your fingers, move the scalp in 



96 EVENING ROUND-UP 

circular motion; this is to stimulate the 
scalp nerves and blood vessels and the 
glands and roots of the hair. Scalp massage 
is wonderfully beneficial. 

The foregoing are the mechanical things 
to do for the skin and hair. They help, but 
the real benefit to your looks comes from 
the bodily health and natural working of 
the organs, particularly the stomach, lungs, 
heart and kidneys and bowels. 

The most important organs to watch are 
the kidneys and stomach; their ailments 
quickly show effects on the face. 

Drink plenty of water, cool, not cold; 
get plenty of air and sunshine. Eat plenty 
of fruit, especially apples, skins too. 

Take exercise in the open air every day. 
Walking is the best exercise. 

Air, water, sunshine and exercise will do 
more for your looks than a barrel of beauty 
preparations. 

The only way to get health out of a 
bottle is to keep out of the bottle. 

You can't buy beauty at the druggists. 

We love our friends for their character, 
not their skin beauty. Have good whole- 
some health and wholesome character and 
you will look mighty good to the world. 



DREAMS 



Hitch Your Wagon to a Star, and 
Stay Hitched 

The great colleges are just now turning 
out their thousands of graduates and the 
great newspapers have much sport ridiculing 
them with funny pictures. 

Every great man was once a boy with a 
dream, and that dream came true because 
the boy had pep that made him stick to his 
ambition and kept him from being dis- 
couraged because of ridicule or obstacles. 

Thomas Carlyle, the poor Scotch tutor, 
dreamed he wanted to be a great author. 
His clothes were threadbare, his poverty 
apparent; friends taunted and ridiculed 
him until, goaded to indignation, he cried, 
"I have better books in me than you have 
ever read." The crowd laughed and said, 
"poor fellow, he's daffy in the head." 

Carlyle stuck to his dream and the world 
has the "History of Frederick the Great" 
and the "French Revolution" and "Sartor 
Resartus." When he had finished the 
manuscript of the "French Revolution" a 

97 



98 EVENING ROUND-UP 

careless maid built a fire with it. He wasn't 
discouraged, but went to work and wrote 
it over again and very likely better than 
he wrote it the first time. 

Bonaparte in the garden of his military 
school dreamed of being a great general. 
He stuck to his dream and he realized his 
hopes. 

Joseph Pulitzer, a poor emigrant, crawled 
in a cellar way to sleep in New York, and 
he dreamed of owning a great newspaper. 
His dream came true and the newspaper is 
printed in a building erected on the spot 
where he dreamed in the cellar way. 

Livingston dreamed of exploring darkest 
Africa; his dream came true. 

Edison dreamed of great electrical dis- 
coveries. His monument is Menlo Park 
with its great laboratories. 

Ford dreamed of making an automobile 
for the purse-limited masses — he was jeered; 
today the world cheers him. 

My friend Bert Perrine was chucked off 
a stage in the middle of Idaho's great sage 
brush desert. He said to the driver, "Some 
day I'll own that stage and I'll use it for a 
chicken house." 

He dreamed and schemed and today the 



EVENING ROUND-UP 99 

desert is the famous Twin Falls country, 
blossoming like a rose, and on his beauti- 
ful ranch at Blue Lakes that old stage is 
used for a chicken house. 

Rockefeller dreamed, Lincoln dreamed, so 
did Garfield, Wilson, Grant, Clay, Webster, 
Marshall Field, Richard W. Sears and all 
the other men who have done things worth 
while in the world. 

The great West is the result of dreams 
come true. 

Dream on, my boy; hitch your wagon to 
a star and stay hitched. That dream and 
that determination are the things that are 
to carry you over obstacles, past thorny 
ways, and through criticism, jeers and 
ridicule. 

Your time will come. Dream and scheme, 
and make your ideals materialize into living, 
pulsating realities. 



REAL CHARITY 



Let Me Help Where I Am Rather 
Than Help in Siam 

There are many persons who act and 
advocate ideals merely for effect — they are 
hypocrites. 

Here's a little true heart story that 
probably passed unnoticed excepting to a 
very few persons. 

Little Spencer Nelson, a poor boy, eight 
years old, recently died in a hospital with 
a little bank clasped to his breast. The 
bank had $3.41 in pennies the boy had 
saved to buy presents for poor children. 

The little hero had fought manfully 
through three months' suffering, enduring 
the torture of five lacerating operations. 
The pain failed to dim his spirit of unselfish- 
ness that burned brightly and clearly in 
his tired, fever-racked body. 

After each operation his mind became 
more securely fixed on his project to help 
bring cheer to poor children. 

A little savings bank was his companion 

100 



EVENING ROUND-UP 101 

and each visitor was asked to contribute to 
his fund. 

Three hours before he died a smile beau- 
tified his thin wasted face as the nurse 
dropped a dime in his bank. His last 
words were to his mother and the message 
was in a scarcely audible whisper, asking 
her to remember to use the money to make 
poor children happy. 

That was real charity; that boy had no 
hypocrisy in his heart. 

The daily paper chronicles sensational 
charity, where men vie with each other to 
see who can give most and get the most 
advertising. They overlook the wonderful 
love and charity they are capable of, if 
they would look into out-of-the-way places 
and get direct connection with pain and 
suffering. 

Little Spencer looked from his cot and 
saw the suffering of other little children and 
he wanted to help them, and the very 
resolve and impulse made him forget his 
own pains and misery. 

In the Book of Good Deeds the name of 
Spencer Nelson will be recorded as a 
sweeter act of charity than any million- 
dollar gift to a great institution. 



102 EVENING ROUND-UP 

What one of you who read these lines can 
read the story of that little hero and not be 
touched by the generous love and beautiful 
conception of charity he possessed. 

He did not need sensational stories in 
newspapers or solicitors of charitable or- 
ganizations to stir him to action. 

He found opportunity at his door, close 
at home, near by, where all of us can find 
it if we only look. 

I don't believe much in this far-away 
charity idea so many have. 

I believe in helping those near where I 
am rather than sending money to Siam. 

It may be a pleasurable sensation for 
you to contribute fifty dollars to a mission- 
ary scheme in Siam, and get the Missionary 
report of the budget made up from the 
foreign missionary fund. 

I know that a bucket of coal in an empty 
stove, a basket of bread and liberal hunk of 
round steak to the starving family around the 
corner brings the donor a better sensation. 

Take a trip to the hospitals, learn about 
the homes of the suffering patients in the 
charity ward, and you will resolve it's a 
better act to send flour to the poor than 
flowers to the rich. * 



EVENING ROUND-UP 103 

Little Spencer Nelson had the right idea 
of charity: definite, immediate help to those 
he could reach right where he was, rather 
than sending money to sufferers far, far 
away. 

Let your gifts be principally flour and 
beef; they help those who need help. 
Flowers are all right in their place, but 
there are more places where flour can be 
used to better purpose. 

I'm keener for filling the coffee can of 
my suffering neighbor than filling the coffers 
of the big charity five thousand miles away. 

I try to help both ways, but the home 
help pays the bigger dividends. What do 
you think about it? 



FRIENDS 



A Most Abused, Too Often Used 
Word 

You have found a friend who has been 
so much help and comfort to you. I have 
such a friend. Tonight I am in the mood 
to think of that friend and write him a 
letter like this: 

This is to You. It is for You. It is 
about You. You I have in mind and the 
good influence you have had on me. It is 
a happiness and satisfaction to know you, 
and to bask in the atmosphere of you. 

The world is better because of you. You 
have helped to raise the average. 

You and your goodness, you do not appre- 
ciate what that means. You are so modest, 
so loath to think of yourself, so unselfish 
in this respect that I must tell you of you 
and about you. 

You have a warm heart that throbs for 
others' woes and holds sympathy. The 
great world is cold, selfish, and cares little 
for others. But you are different; you are 
a great pillow of rest on which I and others 

104 



EVENING ROUND-UP 105 

who love you may lay our tired, weary 
heads, and you wrap your arms of friend- 
ship and goodness about us and feel our 
very heartbeats. 

You with your great goodness, your 
quiet, sympathetic understanding, you 
soothe our troubled spirits and make us 
glad of you and glad we have the precious 
privilege of knowing you. 

Even now as I am telling you how I love 
you, you are trying to wave me aside and 
stop me, but I am in the mood and I want 
to express myself. You know that there is 
a great sin of omission, which is the refrain- 
ing of expressing gratitude for goodness 
extended to us. 

I want to express my gratitude. I do 
not want to be guilty of the sin of omission. 

So here then for you is this little message, 
to tell you I appreciate you, I love you, and 
these words will last after you are gone and 
after I am gone, to tell those of tomorrow 
about you and what those of today thought 
about you. 

You life, your goodness, is an everlasting 
plant that will flourish in many hearts. 
Your influence will last beyond the calendar 
of time; it is indestructible. You have a 



106 EVENING ROUND-UP 

great credit in the universal bank of good 
deeds, where you have deposited worth- 
while acts, deeds, kindnesses, cheer, help, 
friendship, sympathy, courage, gratitude, 
and all the precious jewels worth while. 

I am happy the very moment I think of 
you. I try to express myself but feelings 
and emotions I would describe have not 
words or sentences to express them. You 
understand, you are so big in heart, so 
sensitive in fabric of feeling, so wise in 
understanding, that I want you to think 
and feel all the genuine, noble, lovable, 
appreciative thoughts you can gather to- 
gether about the one you most appreciate. 

Think hard, sincerely, deeply, about that 
one, with all your resources of beautiful 
thought. Think hard that way and now 
you will begin to understand what I feel 
about you, and how I appreciate you. 

You, my inspiration, you who are so 
sensitized to feeling, so delicately adjusted 
to read heart vibrations, you must feel this 
within me I am trying to convey to you. 
Not the love between sweethearts, not the 
love of kin, not the love of friends, but a 
great universal love I have for you — a love 
all who know you bave for you. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 107 

It is a love you cannot return to me in 
equal measure, because you have not the 
object in me that can merit such love. 
That you should love me in the way I love 
you, even in the most diminished propor- 
tions, is satisfaction supreme. 

It is glorious to know you. You water 
the good impulses I have, you encourage 
all that is noble, elevating, and bettering, 
in me. I shall try to be like you, that is, 
so far as I can. You are my model, there 
is but one you. Many may copy you, none 
equal you. You my comfort, you my joy. 
A great glorious you, that a little I am 
trying to paint a picture of. 

How futile my efforts. I might as well 
try to improve the deep beautiful colors of 
the morning glory, or try to retint the lily 
with more beautiful white. 

And so I bid you good-bye, happy that 
there is such a you in the world, more 
happy that I know you, and most happy 
that I know how to appreciate you. 

The sum of all good things I can say, is 
I love you, and the word "love" I use in 
its greatest, broadest sense, which covers 
all the good adjectives. 

This is what I think of YOU. 



MAN'S DANGER PERIOD 



In the Midday of Your Life, Look 
Out 

There is a time in the business man's life 
between the age of 48 and 52 when the man 
undergoes a pronounced change in his life. 

More big men are cut off at 50 than at 
any other age between 45 and 60. 

At 48 to 52 most men change vitally in 
their physical and mental make-up. 

Many men, hitherto straight, moral men, 
go to the bad at this time, and per contra 
many men quit their immoral and health 
hurting habits and change to moral men. 

This danger period is when the newly- 
rich find fault with their wives who have 
helped them to their success. They grow 
tired of their wives and seek the companion- 
ship of young women. 

The divorce courts give most interesting 
figures on this point. 

At this danger period men who have been 
high livers, voracious eaters and heavy 
drinkers find themselves victims of diabetes, 

• 108 



EVENING ROUND-UP 109 

Bright's disease or other forms of kidney- 
troubles. 

Most every man between 48 and 52 who 
works indoors, eats too much, exercises too 
little, sleeps insufficiently. 

Here are a few things for the 50-year-old 
man to do : 

Drink two glasses of warm, not hot, 
water immediately on arising. 

Eat an apple before breakfast; positively 
you must eat the skins too. The skins have 
the phosphorus, phosphates, and brain food. 
The skins make roughage and keep the 
alimentary tract active. 

Eat for breakfast a little bacon, cooked 
rare; crisp bacon has all the good fried out, 
and you simply have ashes left. 

One cup of coffee, an egg or two, some 
cereal and toast, no red meat, no potatoes. 

Walk to your office if it is less than three 
miles; if over three miles ride the extra 
distance, but walk three miles anyway. 

Walk alone. This is most important; it 
relaxes your brain. Walking with com- 
pany makes it a physical exertion and a 
mental pull as well, for a man will talk 
when he has company. 

Eat a light lunch; be sure to eat an apple; 



110 EVENING ROUND-UP 

with it drink two or three glasses of water, 
cool but not cold. 

Let your hearty meal be supper, eat 
slowly and don't talk business. After sup- 
per play with the kids or joke with your 
wife; get a smile on your face. 

Just before you retire read a chapter from 
a worth-while book. The last thoughts 
which you take in at night are the ones 
which stick. 

Leave your business in your business 
clothes, and get in a good night's sleep. 

Keep a sharp look-out for tendencies to 
change your habits and morals. 

At 50 you are walking on thin ice; look 
out, danger is near. 

After you are 55 your habits are pretty 
well established. If you have lived rightly 
till then you're safe thereafter and likely on 
your way to a good ripe old age if you take 
reasonable care of yourself. 



OUR SONS 



They Pattern After Us; Be Worth 
Copying 

We love our own the best; maybe that's 
why we indulge our own too much. Our 
duty to our boys: that's a subject old as 
the hills and it is as important as it is old. 

Today I had the boy problem forcibly 
presented to me. Today in court twenty- 
four boys were brought before the Judge 
charged with petty crimes. Three were 
sent to the penitentiary, seven to relorm 
school and fourteen let go temporarily on 
good behavior. 

A friend of mine interested in criminology 
tells me the great bulk of hold-ups, thefts, 
burglaries and murders are committed by 
boys between 16 and 22 years of age. 

These twenty-four boys I mention were 
just ordinary boys, capable of making good 
citizens if they had had the right kind of 
home treatment and surroundings. Most 
of them got in trouble through their asso- 
ciation with "gangs" or "the bunch," or 
the "crowd," and this because daddy didn't 

have his hand on the rein. 

in 



112 EVENING ROUND-UP 

That boy must have companionship; he 
must have a confidante to whom he can 
share his joys, his sorrows, his hopes, his 
ambitions. If he doesn't get this com- 
eraderie at home he gets it "round the 
corner.' ' 

We know where the boy is when he is at 
school, but how few know the boy's doings 
between times. 

Pool halls tempt the boys, and these 
places are breeding places where filthy 
stories, criminal slang and evil practices 
are hatched. 

Pool halls and saloons invite and fascinate 
the boy. He sees the lights. There is a 
keen pleasure in watching the pink-shirted 
dude with cigarette in his mouth making 
fancy shots. 

There is no one to nag him or bother him ; 
it gets to be his "hang-out," and soon he 
drifts into a crowd that knows the trail to 
the red light district. 

Painted fairies dazzle the giddy boy. It 
takes money to go the pace. Crime is 
gilded over with slang words. Stealing is 
called "easy money." Robbery is "turn- 
ing a trick," and so on. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 113 

A boy becomes what he lives on mentally 
and physically; that's the net of it. 

If Dad is his chum, if sister shares with 
him his amusements, if the family work 
and live on the "all for one and one for all" 
plan, if the boy is kept busy and interested, 
he can be easily trained. 

Neglect him and he will neglect you. 
Love him and he will love you. Meet him 
half way; he's impressionable. 

Show him kindness, he will respond. 
Show him example, he will follow. 

You have to be with him or know where 
he is every minute. 

During his period of adolescence, say 
from twelve or thirteen to sixteen or seven- 
teen, that boy is a mass of plaster of paris, 
easily shaped while plastic, but once set, 
impossible to recast. 

That's the time, Dad, you must be on 
YOUR job with your boy. 

Your counsel, example, love, interest and 
teaching will MAKE the boy. 

Think of these things, Dad, and think 
hard, and think hard NOW. Tomorrow 
may be too late. 



RELIGIOUS EXTREMES 



Form, Frills, Ceremony vs. Excite- 
ment, Ecstacy, Enthusiasm 

Many churches today are running to 
extremes one way or the other. 

On the one hand they are conducted along 
the lines of form, ceremony and ritualism, 
while the other extreme is excitement, 
ecstacy and enthusiasm. 

The church of form, rituals and cere- 
monies attracts the passive who are willing 
to let the priest or pastor or prelate take 
charge of the religious work while they, the 
attendants or worshippers, sit quietly by 
and say amen and join in the responses. 

Paul said, "Away with those forms." 
Christ in ministering to humanity gave no 
forms or made no set sentences for his 
followers. The Lord's Prayer was given 
with the admonition, "After this manner 
pray ye," and certainly not with the com- 
mand, pray ye with these words. 

Form, ceremony and rituals are much 
like most associated charities, a sort of 
convention. Forms "can not express the 

114 



EVENING ROUND-UP 115 

deep emotions, the natural longings, or the 
human desires; they are echoes, hollow and 
unsatisfying. 

For those who do not feel, for those who 
do not act, for those who belong to churches 
because of convention, or for social reasons, 
form and frills fill the bill. 

Form is an exterior religion, an outward 
show. Form doesn't touch the heart or 
awaken the soul. Form in religion is like 
a formal dinner. It is show rather than a 
plan to satisfy human heart hunger. 

Opposite to formal religion is the frenzied 
"scare-you-to-death" excitement method, 
which relies upon mental intoxication to 
stir the people, and like other forms of 
intoxication, the effect soon wears oft. 

I have little patience or sympathy for the 
business men who hire professional evangel- 
ists to come to town to start revivals. 
The sensational revivalists have too acute 
appreciation of the dollar to convince me 
of their sincerity in their work. 

A laborer is worthy of his hire, and a 
preacher, teacher or benefactor of any sort 
should be well paid. But when I see these 
big guns taking away ten to twenty thou- 
sand dollars in cold cash for three weeks' 



116 EVENING ROUND-UP 

campaign converting the poor suffering 
people, the thought comes to me, that if 
the evangelist is sincere he should buy a lot 
of bread, coal and underwear and hire a lot 
of trained nurses with a big part of that 
money. 

Christ and his Apostles were of the 
people; they worked with, and among the 
people; they had no committees, no guar- 
antees and no business men's subscription 
lists. 

It's mighty hard to read about these 
sensational evangelists taking in thousands 
of dollars for a couple of weeks' revival 
meetings, and harmonize that religion with 
the religion of Christ, the carpenter, and 
his Apostles, who were fishermen and work- 
men. 

The excitement, intoxicating, frenzy re- 
vival method is pretty much always the 
same in its working. The evangelist starts 
in with the song "Where is My Wandering 
Boy Tonight," then follows the picture of 
mother, which is painted with sobs of blood. 
Then follows mother's death-bed scene until 
the audience is in tears. Gesticulation, 
mimicry, acting, sensationalism, slang and 
weepy stories follow, until the ferment of 



EVENING ROUND-UP 117 

excitement is developed into a high state 
and droves flock to the altar to be made 
over on the instant into sanctified beings. 

The evangelist stays until his engagement 
is up, and then departs with a pocket full 
of nice fat bank drafts. 

It is a sad commentary on the established 
profession of ministry that sensational pro- 
fessionals are called in and paid fabulous 
prices to convert the people in their com- 
munity. 

I do not take much stock in either the 
frigid form with its frills or the frenzied 
fire and brimstone, scare-you-to-it extremes. 

Somewhere between these extremes is the 
rational natural sane road to travel; the 
religion of brotherly love; of cheers, not 
tears; of hope, not fear; of courage, not 
weakness; of joy, not sorrow; of help, not 
hindrance. 

The religion that makes us love one 
another here, not the kind that says we 
shall know each other there. The religion 
that has to do with human passions, human 
trials, human needs, instead of the frigid 
form or the fevered frenzy; the religion that 
avoids the extremes of heat and cold, that's 
the kind the world needs most. 



118 EVENING ROUND-UP 

Christ taught love, kindness, charity, and 
not beautiful churches, opera singing choirs. 
He spoke not of robes, vestments, forms or 
rituals. 

One of the most beautiful things in the 
Bible is the story of the good Samaritan 
with his simple, unostentatious aid to a 
wounded man, an enemy of his people 
whom the Samaritan knew was none the 
less a brother. And you will remember 
the priest of the temple, the man who 
taught charity, and love, drew up his 
skirts and passed the wounded man by. 



LAZINESS 



We Are Becoming a Nation of Sitters 

Danger is in extremes. Too much of 
anything is bad for the human being's 
health. 

There is a comfortable proportion of 
exercise and rest mixed together that will 
give bodily efficiency. Too much exercise 
is bad, too little is bad. 

Until recent years our vocations and the 
going to or from our places of business gave 
us a well balanced amount of exercise, rest, 
work and pleasure, and all went well. 

Lately we hear much about worry, neu- 
rasthenia, nervous prostration and the like. 
There are several contributing causes to the 
mental and physical ills which are caused 
by * 'nerves.' ' 

First of all, we have an epidemic of labor- 
saving devices. The principal arguments 
used by the manufacturer of a labor-saving 
device is, "It makes money and saves 
work." Making money and getting soft 
snaps seem to be the objectives of most 
human beings. 

119 



120 EVENING ROUND-UP 

The labor-saving devices take away exer- 
cise. The machine does the work. The 
artisan simply feeds the hopper, puts in a 
new roll, or drops in the material. He sits 
down and watches the wheels go around, 
likely smoking a cigarette the meanwhile, 
and more than likely reading the sporting 
sheet of a yellow newspaper. 

Possibly few of my readers have given 
the matter serious thought, and they will 
be astounded at the changed work condi- 
tions which have come into our modern life. 

It will be interesting to note just here 
some of these changes. Men used to live 
within walking distance of their work. 
Now the electric street railway and the 
speedy automobile have eliminated the 
necessity for much walking. 

Men used to climb stairs. The elevator 
has now so accustomed us to the con- 
veniences that stairs are taboo. 

Machines have replaced muscles. The 
old printer walked from case to case and 
got exercise. Today he sits in an easy 
backed chair and uses a linotype. 

Telephoning is quicker than traveling. 
No one "runs for a doctor." 



EVENING ROUND-UP 121 

Our houses have electric washers, electric 
irons and many other labor-saving devices. 

Even the farmer has his telephone, his 
auto, his riding plow, his milking machine 
and his cream separator. 

In the stores the cash boy has dis- 
appeared, the cash carrier takes the money 
to a girl who sits, a machine makes the 
change, another machine does her mathe- 
matics. 

The modern idea of efficiency puts a 
premium on the sedentary feature of occu- 
pations and employes are frequently autom- 
atons that sit. 

The business man sits at his desk, sits 
in a comfortable automobile as he goes 
home, sits at the dinner table and sits all 
evening at the theater, or at the card table. 
It is sit, sit, sit until he gets a big abdomen, 
a puffy skin and a bad liver. 

He tries to counteract this with forced 
exercise in a gymnasium or a couple of 
hours golfing a week. Very likely his 
golfing is more interesting because of the 
side bets, than because of the exercise. 

We are losing out on the natural, pleasur- 
able, and practical exercises, mixed in the 
right proportions to promote physical poise 



122 EVENING ROUND-UP 

and health. Things are too easy, luxury and 
comfort too teasing, for the ordinary mortal 
to resist, and the great mob sits or rides 
hundreds of times when they should stand 
or walk. 

When my objective point is five or six 
blocks I walk and I think on the way. I 
probably get in two to four miles of walking 
every day, which my iriends would save by 
riding in the street cars or autos. 

I walk to my office every morning, a dis- 
tance of nearly four miles. 

I walk alone, so I may relax and not re- 
quire conscious effort as is the case when 
one walks with another. 

That morning walk prevents me reading 
slush and worthless news and relieves me 
of the necessity of talking and using up 
nerve energy. 

I get the worth-while news from my paper 
by the headlines and by the trained ability 
to separate the wheat from the chaff. 

I just feel fine all the time and it's because 
I get to bed early, sleep plenty, exercise 
naturally, think properly and get the four 
great body-builders" in plenty: air, water, 
sunshine, food; and the other four great 



EVENING ROUND-UP 123 

health-makers which are: good thought, 
good exercise, good rest, and good cheer. 

The great crowd aims at ease and so the 
business man sits and loses out on the 
exercise his body and mind must have, and 
therefore the great crowd pays tribute to 
doctors, sanitariums, rest cures, fake tonics, 
worthless medicines, freakish diet fads, and 
crazy cults, isms, and discoveries, that 
claim to bring health by the easy, lazy, 
sitting, comfortable route. 

Believe me, dear reader, it is not in the 
cards to play the game of health that way. 
There "aint no sich animal" said the ruben 
as he saw the giraffe in the circus, and like- 
wise there "aint no sich thing" as health 
and happiness for the man who persistently 
antagonizes nature, and hunts ease where 
exercise is demanded. 

The law of compensation is inexorable 
in its demand that you have to pay for 
what you get, and that you can't get 
worth-while things by worthless plans. 

You must exercise enough to balance 
things, to clear the system, to preserve 
your strength; it doesn't take much time. 



IN THE BIG WOODS 



A Grand, Glorious, Restful 
Recreation 

This afternoon I am sitting on a glacial 
rock in the forest at the foot of Mount 
Shasta. A beautiful spot to rest and a 
glorious book of nature to read. 

A canopy of deepest blue sky above, with 
sunshine unstopped by clouds. The rays 
of old Sol pulsate themselves into an endless 
variety of flowers, plants and vegetable life 
which Mother Earth has given birth to in 
evidence of her gladness and love of the 
beautiful. 

Glorious trees of magnificent size reach 
up into the blue and give us shade. Ozone 
sweeps gently through the forest impreg- 
nated with the perfume of fir, balsam, 
cedar, pine and flowers. 

In this spot, nature has thrown up moun- 
tains of volcanic rock, which hold the 
winter's snow in everlasting supply to 
quench the thirst of plant, of animal and 
millions of humans in the lower country. 

The whole hillside around me is a com- 
munity of springs of crystal water laden 

124 



EVENING ROUND-UP 125 

with iron, and precious salts. It is the 
breast of Mother Earth which nurses her 
offspring. 

Here are no noises of the street ; the news- 
boy's cry of "extra" is not heard. The 
peddler, the din of trucks, the honk of auto- 
mobiles, the clatter of the city — all these 
are absent. 

There is no noise here; just the sweet 
music of falling water, and the aeolian 
lullaby made by the breeze playing on the 
pine needles. 

My eyes take in a panorama of beautiful 
nature in colors and contrasts that would 
give stage fright to any artist who tried to 
paint the scenes on canvas. 

I am getting pep, this is my treatment 
for tired nerves; 'tis the "medcin' of the 
hills," 'tis nature's cure, and how it brings the 
pill box or the bottle of tonic into contempt ! 

I'm letting down the high tension voltage 
and getting the calm, natural pulsation that 
nature intended the human machine to have. 

So quiet, so peaceful, so natural that I 
drink in inspiration of a worth-while kind. 
No war news to read, no records of tragedy, 
of man's passions, of man's meanness and 
man's selfishness. 



126 EVENING ROUND-UP 

A little chipmunk sits upright on a rock 
before me wondering at the movements of 
my yellow pencil and the black mark it 
makes on the paper. 

A delicate lace-winged insect lights on 
my tablet and a saucy "camp robber" or 
mutton bird wonders at the unusual sight 
of me, the big man animal brother. A big 
beetle is getting his provisions for the win- 
ter. I recognize his occupation, for Fve 
read about him in Fabre's wonderful books 
on insect life. 

Here in the sanctum sanctorium of the 
forest I am made a member of Nature's 
lodge, and the ants, and bugs, and beetles, 
and flowers and plants and trees are initiat- 
ing me and telling me the secrets of the order. 

I can only tell you who are in the great 
busy world outside, the lessons and morals. 
The real secrets I must not tell; you will 
receive them when you, too, come to the 
hills and forests, and sit down on a rock 
alone and go through the initiation. 

You are invited to come in; your appli- 
cation is approved, and you are eligible to 
membership. 

Come to Nature^s lodge meeting and 
clear away the cobwebs from your weary 



EVENING ROUND-UP 127 

brain; get inspiration and be a man again. 

Come and soothe and rest and built up 
those shredded, weakened, tired, weary- 
nerves. Let the sun put its coat of health 
and the ozone put the red blood of strength 
in your veins. 

Come and get perfect brain and body- 
resting sleep. Come to this wonderful, 
happy, helpful lodge and get a store of 
energy, and an abundance of vital ammuni- 
tion with which to make the fight, when 
you go back to your factory or office. 

The doctor can lance the carbuncle, but 
Nature's outdoor medicine will prevent your 
having a carbuncle. 

The doctor can stop a pain with a poison 
drug, but Nature's outdoor medicine will 
prevent you having the disorder which 
makes the pain. 

No, brother, you can't get health out of 
a bottle or a pill box. You can get it from 
the Mother Nature's laboratory where she 
compounds air, water, sunshine, beauty, 
music, thought ; where she gives you exercise 
and rest, health, happiness, all summed up 
into cashable assets for the human in the 
shape of poise, efficiency, peace and that 
spells PEP. 



MOTHER 



The Most Unselfish Person in the 
World 

Mother, you are the one person in all the 
world whose kindness was never the preface 
to a request. 

That's the sweetest tribute we can pay 
you, and the most truthful one. 

It covers devotion, love, sentiment, 
motherhood, and all the noble attributes 
that go to make the word, Mother, the 
most hallowed, most sacred, most beauti- 
ful word in the English language. 

There are not words or sentences that 
can express to you what we think of you 
or convey our appreciation of you. 

You want our love; you have it. You 
should be told of our love; we tell you. 
Appreciation and gratitude are payments 
on account, but with all our appreciation 
and with our whole life's gratitude, the 
debt we are under can never be paid. 
"We have careful words for the stranger, 
And smiles for the some time guest — 

But oft to our own the bitter tone, 
Though we love our own the best/' 

128 



EVENING ROUND-UP 129 

We've hurt you, Mother, many times, by 
our thoughtlessness and by our resentment 
of your plans and your views about the 
things we did, and you have had heart- 
aches because of such actions of ours. 

Forgive us, Mother, we're sorry; and 
there you are, dear; the moment we ask 
your forgiveness, your great, tender, loving 
heart has forgiven us and erased the marks 
of transgression. 

Always thinking of us, always excusing 
us, always doing for us, always watching 
us and always loving us in the most un- 
selfish way. 

We love you, Mother; we appreciate you. 
We are going to show our appreciation and 
love so much more from now on. We have 
just come to our senses and realized what 
a wonderful, necessary, helpful being you 
are. 

Your sweetness, your gentleness, your 
goodness, your love, are parts of you. 

They all go to make up that word, 
Mother. 

Your life, your acts, your example, your 
Motherhood, have all helped the world so 
much more than you will ever know. 



130 EVENING ROUND-UP 

In the everlasting record of good deeds 
your name is in gold. 

In the everlasting memory of those who 
appreciate you, your face, your life, is the 
sacred, helpful picture that grows more 
beautiful as the days pass. 

In tenderness, in appreciation, in love, 
let us dedicate these thoughts, and voice 
these expressions to Mother, who gives her 
life, by inches, and who would give it all on 
the instant for her children, if necessity 
called for the sacrifice. 

How feeble are words when we try to 
describe Mother ! 



OUR BODIES 



They Are Made Up of Mineral 
Substances 

We speak of the three kingdoms: the 
animal, the vegetable and the mineral 
kingdoms, and every substance is classified 
into one of these. 

The exact truth is there is but one king- 
dom, which is the mineral. The vegetable 
substances and animal combinations are 
made of mineral elements. 

In a rough way we distinguish the mineral 
kingdom as those substances called ele- 
ments, such as iron, sulphur, carbon, oxygen, 
hydrogen, sodium and the like. 

These elements are unchangeable in them- 
selves; they do not grow. The animal is 
made of mineral elements associated in 
certain proportions, such as albumin, car- 
bon, lime, water, salt and the like. The 
vegetable kingdom consists of these various 
chemical combinations also. 

Seed when planted extracts from the air 
and the earth the minerals and combines 
them into a plant which grows and has for 

131 



132 EVENING ROUND-UP 

its object the making of seeds to reproduce 
and perpetuate itself. 

The plant has life but it has no spiritual 
or mental equipment and therein vegetable 
life differs from the animal life. The 
animal eats vegetable and animal flesh. 
Through the vegetable he gets the mineral 
necessary for his body building. Through 
the animal food he gets the mineral from 
the flesh he eats, which flesh was first of all 
built up through the vegetables the animal 
ate. 

These are definite facts ; there is no theory 
about them. 

The human body analyzed and separated 
into something like a dozen substances, 
among which are water, which is three- 
fourths of the body's structure; carbon, 
lime, phosphorus, iron, potassium, salt and 
so on. 

By reading a book on anatomy you can 
learn just exactly the proportions of the 
substances in the human body. 

All these chemicals are formed in the 
shape of little cells, myriads of which are 
in the body. These "cells are constantly 
being destroyed and new ones made to take 
their place. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 133 

Parts of the body are replaced every 
twenty-four hours, other parts less often. 

Scientists tell us that the whole body is 
replaced every seven years. Every move 
you make destroys cells which nature has 
to replace. Isn't it reasonable then to con- 
clude that if a man should fail to eat 
enough lime for his body-building, his bones 
would suffer. If he does not get enough 
iron his blood will suffer, and so on. 

I am definitely convinced that most of 
the actual physical ailments are caused by 
a deficiency of the mineral elements in the 
body. 

Phosphorus and potash are necessary to 
the human welfare. These elements are in 
the husk of the wheat and the husk is taken 
off in making flour, and the flour is mostly 
starch. 

The person who lives mostly on white 
bread will suffer from lack of phosphorus 
and potash. 

Phosphorus also is found in the skin of 
an apple, so if you peel an apple you do 
not get the phosphorus. 



FOOD 



The Food We Eat Is Fuel for the 
Human Engine 

The practice of medicine in the past has 
been directed towards the curing of devel- 
oped disease and physical ailments. The 
practice of medicine in the future is to be 
along the line of preventive practice. Science 
is showing us how to prevent infection. 
Science is fighting the deadly microbe which 
comes to us in the air we breathe, the water 
we drink, and the food we eat and the 
infected things we touch. 

Nature has supplied the human body 
with a home guard of necessary bacteria 
and in the circulation system are phagocytes 
which fight the invading microbes and gen- 
erally destroy them. 

When the system is weakened through 
disease, through lack of exercise or through 
improper food, disease has an easy time. 

The important thing to prevent disease 
is to keep yourself fit, and the golden pre- 
scription which I have given in PEP will 
serve to keep you in perfect health. 

134 



EVENING ROUND-UP 135 

I want you to remember this golden pre- 
scription; it is composed of the following: 
Good Air, Good Water, Good Sunshine, 
Good Food, Good Exercise, Good Cheer, 
Good Rest and Good Thought. If you 
take this golden prescription you will make 
of yourself a giant in brain and brawn 
strength. 

You can't get health out of a bottle. 
You can't get the system to absorb iron if 
you take it in the form of tincture of iron. 
You can eat a pound of rust, which is oxide 
of iron, and none of that iron will be 
absorbed in the system. 

As I have explained in another chapter 
you must take the mineral in the system 
through the vegetable route. You will get 
iron, that will be assimilated, when you 
eat beefsteak. Beefsteak has blood, the 
blood has iron. You will also get iron when 
you eat spinach. 

Every element necessary for your body 
is found in some vegetable or animal food; 
therefore, you should refrain from confin- 
ing yourself to a very few articles of food. 

Don't pay any attention to the faddist 
who gives you a rigorous diet or unpalatable 
food. You simply make yourself miserable 



136 EVENING ROUND-UP 

and you generate more worry and unhappi- 
ness by your discipline than the good you 
get from these freak fads. 

We all eat too much, especially too much 
meat. 

That a strict vegetarian diet is the nec- 
essary thing for good health I deny. The 
sheep, the cow, and horse are vegetarians 
and they are short lived. The eagle, the 
lion and man, eat animal food and they 
are long lived. 

I may be prejudiced, but it does seem to 
me that the strict vegetarians are skinny, 
sallow looking lot of humans, speaking 
generally. I do find that the healthier 
specimens of vegetarians are those who eat 
plenty of eggs and drink plenty of milk, 
both of which are animal food, and both of 
which have nearly all the elements nec- 
essary to sustain life. 

I don't like the fads in the matter of 
eating. The amount a person should eat 
is in exact accord with the law of compensa- 
tion. 

The human body is a machine from a 
food standpoint. It is an engine that has 
work to do and accordingly the amount of 
fuel necessary for the engine should be in 



EVENING ROUND-UP 137 

proportion to the amount of work that 
engine is called on to perform. 

The hotels, restaurants and food pur- 
veyors invent palate tickling food to tease 
the human to eat, and hotels and res- 
taurants are mostly patronized by people 
who do not have much physical work to do ; 
the consequence is they eat too much. 

You do not often find dyspepsia or 
indigestion among men or women who work 
hard physically. 

You who work indoors with little physical 
exercise will find wonderful benefits if you 
will cut down the fuel. 

You will get sick if you pile in more fuel 
than is necessary for the engine. 

If your engine needs twenty pounds of 
steam how foolish it is to keep up a hun- 
dred pounds pressure. 

If you had five-horsepower work to per- 
form how foolish it would be to install a 
two-hundred-and-fifty-pound engine. 

Much of the physical trouble comes from 
filling up the boiler too much. 

Cut down the food and you will leel 
better. 



DAUGHTERS 
A Message From a Daddy's Heart 

Dear little Mary Elizabeth and Nancy 
Lou and dear little girls everywhere who 
read these lines: here is a message and a 
wish from daddy's heart. 

I want you to be golden girls, girls who 
love home and children; girls who love 
simple things, natural things; I want you 
to be sweet rather than pretty, lovable 
rather than popular. 

May the mirror never reflect paint, rouge 
or make-up on your face. A little talcum 
powder is all right. 

Do not look upon matrimony as a means 
to provide food and finery for you. 

Do not be ashamed of an old-fashioned 
mother. Do not be a "good fellow.' ' Do 
not be afraid to say "I can't afford it." 

Help the family; be part of it, and not 
apart from it. 

When you are old enough to have a beau, 
do not be afraid to bring him into your 
home, no matter how humble it is. 

When I was a beau I courted my sweet- 
heart in her home. My treat was red 

138 



EVENING ROUND-UP 139 

apples and a walk down the lane. Most 
every beau nowadays courts his girl with 
a taxi to the theatre, and red lobsters after 
the dinner; ten dollars they pay where I 
paid ten cents, and I had ten times more 
happiness. 

Be modest, girls; it is your greatest asset. 

Don't gossip or belittle other girls; find 
the good you can say of others ; that quality 
makes you more attractive. 

Keep your voice low, be gentle, sweet, 
kind, human and simple; that is what my 
sweetheart is; that is why our married life 
has been a honeymoon all these years. 

Watch out for word candy and flattery; 
these things mark the hypocrite and a 
hypocrite is an abomination. Flattery is a 
practiced deceit — a dishonorable bait to 
catch affections. 

Do not allow any young man to relate a 
story in your presence that has the slightest 
risque turn to it. Show by your words and 
your actions that such presumption is an 
insult. 

Fine feathers never make fine birds; 
don't borrow finery; don't be attractive for 
your fine dresses; the men attracted by 



140 EVENING ROUND-UP 

fluff, frills, feathers and furbelows are not 
worth shucks. 

Be square with yourself and square to 
the man who is after your heart; put your- 
self mentally in the place of a wife, when a 
man gets serious. 

Don't hurry, girls; don't judge the man 
by his money prospects but by his char- 
acter and ambition. 

Have nothing to do with any young 
suitor who isn't always kind, considerate 
and attentive to his mother. 

Marry a man of character who courts 
you in the sweet, simple old way. 

If a young man spends money extrava- 
gantly before marriage, hard times will 
always be around during his married life. 

The most precious possessions in the 
world are happiness and love, and these 
come from simple things, genuineness, and 
usefulness. 

Learn to cook and to sew. You can't be 
happy and idle at the same time. 

Learn to be independent of dressmaker 
and milliner and cooks. You may have 
them, I hope you will, but master these 
useful vocations yourself, then you will 



EVENING ROUND-UP 141 

have dresses and hats and dinners worth 
while. 

The world is full of new-fashioned slangy, 
dancy, fancy, foolish girls who marry lor 
style, stunts and society, and their married 
life is failure, worry and sorrow. 

Be the golden, pure, old-fashioned, sweet, 
simple, quiet, modest girl who knows things, 
rather than one who is a show-off girl. 

And here's a tip to you, young man, who 
reads these lines, get a golden girl like I 
have described ; a girl of pure gold and not 
glittering tinsel; a sweet, natural, sensible 
girl, that will do team work and be a help- 
mate to you and not a drawback and 
money spender. 

Daddy knows these things; he's been 
around the world. He is endowed with an 
ability to observe, analyze and benefit. 

He's had experience, he's seen the world 
from cottage to castle, and these things he 
tells you because of his love lor you and 
because he wants you to have such a home 
life as he has. 

And these truths, these hopes, are from 
the very bottom of his heart to his daughters 
Mary Elizabeth and Nancy Lou and all 
the other girls who have read these lines. 



POISE 



A Necessity to the Person Who 
Accomplishes 

There are men who cannot be kept down 
by circumstances or obstacles. 

These men progress with confidence in 
their hearts and smiles on their faces. They 
do not lie in wait for the band wagon or 
favorable winds; they make things happen. 

They are, of course, alert and alive to 
favorable opportunity and helpful influences 
when they come their way. 

These men are men of good health. They 
are out of doors much, they carry their 
heads high and breathe in good air deeply. 
They greet friends with a smile and put 
meaning and feeling into every hand clasp. 

Let's you and I follow their trail, for it 
leads out on to the big road. 

Do not fear being misunderstood, right 
will finally come in to its own. 

We will keep our minds off our enemies, 
and keep our thoughts on our purpose; we 
will make up our minds what we want to 
do. We will mark a straight line on the 
log and hew to that line. 

142 



EVENING ROUND-UP 143 

Fear is the dope drug that kills initiative, 
hate the poison that shatters clear thinking. 

Hate and fear are iron ore in our life's 
vessel, it deflects the compass and prevents 
our holding to the course. 

There are splendid worth-while things for 
us to do and with continuity of action and 
singleness of purpose the days will pass by, 
as we are seizing opportunity and making 
use of the things required for the fulfillment 
of our desires. 

We are like the coral insect that takes 
from the running tide the material to build 
a solid fortress. Our running tide is the 
gliding golden days. 

Let's waste no time in trying to make 
friends or in seeking to attach ourselves to 
others. True friends are not caught by 
pursuit; they come to us, they happen 
through circumstances we do not create. 

Self-reliance is ours and we must first use 
it for our own betterment. We will then 
have a surplus of energy to allow us to 
help others. 

Solitude beats society, relaxation beats 
conventional function, and foolish so-called 
pleasures. 

Our energy hours must be devoted to our 



144 EVENING ROUND-UP 

purpose and ideals. Atween times we 
must rest, relax and recuperate the waste 
that strenuosity makes. 

Breathe good air, bask in the sunshine, 
see nature and say to yourself, "All these 
treasures are for me, all these things I am 
part of." 

Do not prepare for death, prepare for 
life. Preparing for death brings the end 
before your allotted time. 

Like Job of old that which we fear will 
come to us. We must not think of death, 
or waste time preparing for it. It makes 
us miserable today. It makes us weak and 
fills us with fear and it draws the day of 
our departure nearer. 

Today is ours. Live, freely, fully today. 
Be unafraid, unhurried, and undisturbed. 

We are building character, and the way 
we build it is by mental attitude, by our 
acts, and the way we employ the precious 
time today. 

Lay hold of the great forces of nature, 
realize the wonderful power of the will and 
you will be strong, a* veritable king among 
men. 



PIONEER MOTHERS 



Knitting From Necessity Today, 
Knitting for Pleasure Tomorrow 

As I write these lines I am riding on a 
slow train through Oklahoma. Purposely I 
am in the day coach smoker for that's the 
place to study local color, and see the 
natives. 

The atmosphere around is oil and gas, 
the talk is "bringing in a gusher," "tanks," 
"rigs," "leases," "wild cat sales," "off- 
sets," "selling stock," and the like; all the 
phrases, all the talk is striking it rich, get- 
ting money. 

Indians, Mexicans, Negroes, college boys 
in surveying crews and speculators form a 
hodge podge. Men from all parts of the 
states are here seeking dollars. 

I have been around these oil and gas 
fields in autos and by teams. I've been 
observing life, character, passions and 
habits. 

I've seen brave women here with nursing 
babies living in tents or patchwork shacks. 
Some of these women dream at night of 
silks and satins and mansions and position. 

145 



146 EVENING ROUND-UP 

By day these poor women work and mend 
and cook and sew, doing their part to help 
things along. Many of the husbands are 
earning five to eight dollars a day and 
spending most of it on foolishness. The 
poor wives get only enough for bare neces- 
sities, and yet they patiently work and 
mend and cook and sew. 

Talk about patience ; talk about devotion ; 
talk about grit; talk about courage; just 
come down to the oil fields and see these 
poor pioneer women. 

Talk about selfishness; talk about cow- 
ardice; talk about brutality; talk about 
debasement; come down and see some of 
these men making $25 to $50 a week and 
never a cent in their pockets Monday 
morning. 

Woman is called weak — that means the 
rich woman — the poor woman possesses 
strength that psychology cannot explain. 
Men can be analyzed, but you are at a loss 
to understand woman. Poor women grow 
into a sweet replica of their mothers, the 
most unselfish, patient, generous, forgiving, 
lovable, adorable creatures on earth. 

Man grows away from his mother; he 
roughens and cools and grows selfish and 



EVENING ROUND-UP 147 

expects and demands the woman shall love 
him with all these faults, and generally she 
does. 

The poor woman makes an idol of her 
husband and in her love thinks he is ideal. 

Let him spend his money, she sticks to 
him; let poverty and want come to the 
home, she sticks. Let ill treatment be her 
portion, she sticks; and withal there are 
smiles on her lips most of the time. 

I'm sorry for the poor woman in the oil 
fields, and the only glimmer of compensation 
I can find is that she doesn't have nervous 
prostration like her wealthy society sister 
has. 

Those little husky children I see over 
there in the yard playing Indian will likely 
know the worth of a dollar later on. I 
peep into the future and predict that those 
boys will get on in the world, and Mother 
who is chopping wood for supper I see some 
day with a nice black grosgrain silk dress 
and a ball of knitting in her silk hand bag. 

I see her from necessity knitting stock- 
ings for her children. In the future 
some day, far beyond want, for her sons 
will be successful men, she still is knitting 



148 EVENING ROUND-UP 

and mending and helping, a smile on her 
lips and a soft light in her eye. 

Plump, round and well fed, she sits there 
knitting with pleasure and dreaming of the 
pioneer days she spent in the Oklahoma 
cabin. Yes, that's the picture of the future. 
The train is pulling into a city; I don't 
want the picture of the poor, hard-working, 
unselfish, sacrificing woman and her worth- 
less husband to remain in my memory. 

The sons will come out all right; they 
always do when they have a shiftless dad 
and a good mother. And somehow in this 
great open splendid Western country there 
is opportunity for such boys. 

The big men here were all poor a short 
time ago. Their grandfathers were rich, 
their fathers spent their inheritance, they 
suffered poverty and want and their ex- 
tremity was the son's spur to ambitious 
activity. 

In the car are four young sports coming 
home from college on a vacation. Their 
daddies are all oil kings, and these young- 
sters will inherit fortunes. 

Those youngsters who were playing 
Indian will get on in the world; these four 
young millionaire kids will go broke; their 



EVENING ROUND-UP 149 

heads are not shaped right; their jaws slant 
back; it isn't in them. I know something 
of character. 

Bye-bye, Mamma, with your little cabin 
and your boys; some day you will have 
peace and plenty. 

Those four oil Johnnies will marry girls 
who have plenty and some day those girls 
will have to do the family washing. 

The wheel turns, it's the history of the 
past. From shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in 
three generations. 

Lincolns, Garfields, and Edisons came 
from just such little cabins and just such 
rough, hard, bare life as I have been seeing 
this afternoon. 



ANGER 



It's a Temporary Mental 
Derangement 

Anger and acts of revenge are great pull- 
backs to health. 

Anger makes the blood rush to the head, 
weakens the body, and distorts the vision. 

When a woman gets angry, she quarrels 
with her lover, her husband or her children. 
Any one of these things is a calamity. 

When a man gets angry he is a wild man, 
his eyes glitter, his mouth is cruel, his fists 
clinch, his body trembles, his blood veins 
strain and he does more harm in five 
minutes' anger than nature can repair in a 
day. 

Anger makes weak stomachs, dizzy heads, 
poor judgment, lost friends, despair, sick- 
ness and likely the confirmed habit will lead 
to apoplexy. 

When two men have differences, watch 
the cool man finish victor, the angry man 
always loses. 

Keep your head; let the other fellow fret 
and fume. 

ISO 



EVENING ROUND-UP 151 

He will tie himself up in a knot and finish 
loser. 

Serenity is a God's blessing and fortunate 
is the man who can hold his serenity. 

When you get a letter that stirs you to 
anger, don't answer that letter for forty- 
eight hours, then write a moderately vitriolic 
letter, — and then tear it up. 

I know you are tempted, goaded and your 
limit of endurance is sometimes exhausted. 

I know revenge is sweet only in anticipa- 
tion. I know that revenge by anger and 
by the cruel "eye for an eye" measure is 
never, never sweet. 

I have had imposition, ingratitude, in- 
sincerity and advantages taken of me be- 
cause I kept my poise and serenity. 

I have been called easy, and soft, and 
friends have shown me where I was imposed 
upon, but I was stooping to conquer. I 
kept my reserve, my resistance and my 
power ready until time, place, and pre- 
paredness let me spring my coup and then 
I cashed in beautifully in principal and 
interest for those acts and hurts. 

I have power now in my hands to make 
others suffer, keenly and deeply, for wrongs 



152 EVENING ROUND-UP 

they have done me. Yet I do not exercise 
that power to revenge. 

I have been misjudged and misunderstood 
because cowardly persons have lied and 
villified me and accused me of motives and 
acts of which I was innocent. 

I am well hated now by one person in 
particular who blames me for things another 
is guilty of. A word from me would clear 
me, but it would bring gloom and despair 
to that person and would not make me any 
less cognizant of my innocence. 

Time somehow will bring out the truth; 
the cowardly, guilty individual who basks 
in the favor of the one who is angry at me 
will surely pay for his wrong. 

This I know and I am satisfied with the 
ultimate result. 

My former friend who is angry at me 
would simply switch the anger current to 
the guilty one if I told the facts ; the guilty 
person couldn't stand that anger like I can. 
My act would break up a home and bring 
misery. 

I am far removed from the location 
where these people live, and I can stand 
the anger of the one who puts the blame 



EVENING ROUND-UP 153 

on me and accepts the lies of another as 
truth. 

I have the documents in black and white, 
yet I don't use them because I have poise 
and the consciousness of knowing I am 
right and those who are dear to me know 
it, too. 

I could be angry, but I couldn't live and 
enjoy and write books like "Pep" and this 
book if I let anger get in and spoil the 
serenity which is mine. 

I've tried both plans, anger and poise, 
and I like poise better. 

I believe I hear more birds, I believe I 
get more pleasure out of life and living 
than the man who gets angry and loves 
revenge. 

Anyway I think so, and "As a man 
thinketh in his heart, so is he." 



SALT 

It's a Drug; Too Much Is Bad for 
You 

Don't eat too much salt. Salt is a drug; 
it carries with it lime and magnesia and 
they tend to clog up things. 

Too much salt will likely cause gall 
stones or gravel. 

Some persons sprinkle salt over potatoes, 
beef and everything they eat; it's a bad 
practice. 

You get enough salt in your bacon, and 
in the meat you eat. The lood as it comes 
from the kitchen has plenty of salt in it. 

Those who eat too much salt must sufter. 

People have told me that the craving for 
salt was a natural thing; it isn't so, it's a 
cultivated taste. You didn't like salty 
olives the first time you tasted them. 

Because deer and cattle greedily lick salt 
is no proof salt is natural and good, and 
needed in quantities. Cattle and horses 
will eat loco weed and when they get the 
habit they will eat and eat until they get 
crazy. 

154 



EVENING ROUND-UP 155 

Man will crave tobacco; it isn't a natural 
taste, it's merely a cultivated taste. 

The desire for excess salt on everything 
you eat is a habit and a bad habit. 

It tends to make calcareous deposits in 
your system, and it will aftect the blood 
and the muscles and the bones. 

Nature puts practically enough salt in 
the food and cooks certainly add enough 
salt in their seasoning to furnish all the 
system needs. 

Excess salt eating dulls the finer sensi- 
bilities of taste just as excess pepper or 
Worcester sauce or mustard does. It kills 
the fine natural flavor. 

There's enough salt in butter to season 
the eggs you eat. Try your eggs next time 
without putting pepper and salt on them. 

Learn to get the natural flavors and you 
will enjoy your food more. 

Remember again excess craving lor salt 
is simply evidence that you have a drug 
habit, not as dangerous as other drug habits, 
but bad for you just the same. 

Check yourself every time you reach 
for a salt cellar. 

Watch the children; don't let them eat 
too much salt. 



INSOMNIA 



It's Caused By High Mental Tension 

Sleeping, like breathing and digesting, is 
controlled by the subconscious brain centers. 
Natural sleep requires no positive mental 
impulse; it's just relaxing and nature takes 
care of the process. 

That is natural sleep, but when you start 
your dry cell battery, the brain, and com- 
mence to worry and fear, you are going to 
stay awake; then the conscious mind domi- 
nates the subconscious mind and you banish 
the very comforter you seek to woo. 

Business men who keep up high tension 
all day on business matters, and high ten- 
sion all evening in threshing all over again 
the business of the day, are almost sure to 
suffer from insomnia. 

The continuance of the day and night 
habit of thinking of business brings on the 
insomnia habit and that starts the auto 
suggestion that you are fighting for your 
natural sleep. This produces worry, the 
demon that kills and maims. 

To have an occasional wakeful night is 

156 



EVENING ROUND-UP 157 

natural; it is an evidence of intelligence: 
the mental dullard never has wakeful 
nights. 

Unless the fear of sleeplessness becomes 
a full grown phobia no anxiety need be felt. 
The fear of insomnia, the over anxiety to 
go to sleep, is to be more dreaded than 
insomnia itself. 

To get refreshing sleep you must get 
physical tiredness. Take exercise. Walk 
in one direction until the first symptoms 
of becoming tired appears, then walk home. 
Take a hot bath, then sponge with cold or 
cool water. Put a cold cloth at the head, 
rub the backbone with cold water. 

Open your windows wide, then relax. 
Don't worry; j^ou are going to sleep. 

Lie on your back, open your eyes wide, 
look up as if you were trying to see your 
eyebrows, hold your eyes open this way 
ten to twenty seconds, then close them 
slowly. Repeat this several times. Soon 
the sandman will come. 

Concentrate your mind on auto sugges- 
tion like this: ''I am going to sleep — sound 
heavy, restful, peaceful sleep. My eyelids 
are getting heavy — heavy. I am going to 
close them and go to sleep.' ' 



158 EVENING ROUND-UP 

Don't try counting imaginary sheep jump- 
ing over fence rails. Don't count numbers. 
It is a bad habit. 

If these suggestions do not help you the 
first night say, "All right, my brain was too 
active, so then tomorrow I will let down 
a bit." 

Next night eat one or two dry crackers, 
chew them slowly, masticate them thor- 
oughly until you can swallow easily. 

This little food will draw the blood 
pressure from the brain and help you to go 
to sleep. 

Drive out business and worry thoughts. 
Think faith and courage thoughts. 



MISTAKES 



Not the Making But the Repeating, 
Is Your Danger 

To live down the past and erase the 
errors, live boldly the present. 

Do not chastise or condemn yourself for 
mistakes you have made; you are not 
alone; everyone has made missteps, has 
hurt others, has wronged himself. 

Everyone has had trouble, reverses and 
misfortune; it's the plan of things, and 
these things come to give us experience and 
correct our future acts by the knowledge of 
how to avoid errors and wrongs. 

Yesterday is dead; forget it. Face about; 
live today; be busy, be active, be intent on 
doing right and accomplishing things worth 
while. 

The world's memory is short. A mis- 
deed, an error, a wrongful act on your part 
may set busy tongues wagging today and 
you may suffer from calumny and criticism. 
Of course your errors will be magnified and 
your wrongs enlarged beyond the truth; 
that's the penalty you pay. 

159 



160 EVENING ROUND-UP 

Lies are always added to truth in telling 
of one's misdeeds. Be brave; weather the 
storm, it will soon blow over. Tomorrow 
the world will forget. 

You've suftered in your own conscience; 
that's all the debt you can pay on the old 
score. 

Now, then, get busy with the glorious 
opportunity today presents. Don't make 
the same mistake again. There are no 
eyes in the back of your head; look forward. 

Don't worry by envying the other fellow 
and comparing his good deeds with your 
mistakes; you only see his good. He has 
had troubles and made mistakes too, but 
you and the world have forgotten them. 

If every man's sins were printed on their 
foreheads the crowds you pass would all 
wear their hats over their eyes. 

I'm trying to comfort you, and slap you 
on the back and tell you you are just 
human and all humans make false steps. 

The patriarchs in the Bible made mis- 
takes, but they got in the fold. History has 
perpetuated their names. Their lives on 
the whole were worth while. It's the sum 
total of acts that count. 



TOMORROW 



A Little Analysis of Our Relation to 
Eternity 

One man says the present is everything, 
the eternity is nothing. 

The other man says eternity is everything, 
present is nothing. 

I believe the real truth is, both are man's 
chief concern, and neither is all truth. 

In this matter the general rule I have so 
often pointed out will harmoniously apply; 
that rule is, avoid extremes. 

Those who believe that the now, the 
present, is the all important thing in man's 
life have the fashionable or favorite point 
of view. 

Man definitely knows much about the 
present, he knows much about life. He is 
in the midst of life — it pulsates all around 
him and in him. 

We know positively that the law of 
compensation is inexorable in its demands 
for right and positive in its punishment of 
wrong. 

We know that on this earth kindness, 

161 



162 EVENING ROUND-UP 

love, occupation, help, truth, honor and 
sympathy are investments which bring 
happiness today. You get your pay in- 
stantly when you have done a helpful act 
and you get your punishment instantly 
when you have done a hurtful act. 

That there is a future most of us agree, 
because good sense and logic points to that 
sane and reasonable conclusion. 

So be it, with a belief in the future estate, 
it is reasonable to assume that our acts 
and lives in the present estate will have 
influence on our future estate. 

We know positively of today, and the 
happiness we can get from good deeds done 
today. 

If we will have power in the future to 
look back to today's acts, well and good, if 
today's acts are worth while. 

The other view that eternity is every- 
thing and the present is nothing is the 
antiquated view, the narrow view; the, I 
might say, illiterate view. 

That view warps the present life; it calls 
for present self- chastisement, present gloom, 
present sorrow and present misery. 

It takes the tangible definite today, calls 



EVENING ROUND-UP 163 

it nothing, and accepts the intangible un- 
known eternity as everything. 

It trades the definite for the indefinite. 
It calls life a bubble, a vapor, a shadow. 
In fact, it makes gloom on today's sunshine 
and puts its believers into a purgatory; 
a dismal unhappy punishment antechamber 
where man exists and waits peeping out of 
his cell windows for a little imagined view 
of eternity. 

He waits and endures the unpleasant 
interval, steeled against definite pleasures 
and evident life of today, and worried into 
an intoxicated colored belief in the expected 
happiness of the undefined future. 

He refuses to think of definite life of 
today and spoils the thought of those who 
do. 

He is a blockade to progress, a disagree- 
able part of life's picture. 

He gets no happiness in the today which 
is in his hands, he loses this opportunity 
during his definite existence, and lives on 
future hopes in a future state which no 
man today knows what it will be. 

Both theories as ultimate beliefs are 
wrong, yet each has some truth in its con- 
clusion, 



164 EVENING ROUND-UP 

By taking the words eternity and present 
and saying both means everything, we 
avoid extremes and form a truth that is 
rational, and harmonious to good reason. 

The man who says present is all does so 
because he is an utilitarian. He acts on the 
definite and refuses to believe in the ab- 
stract. Anything that is outside the sphere 
of his vision and action is of little concern 
to him. 

The man who says eternity is all, wastes 
opportunity, example and warps himself 
into a miserable hermit. 

Life is irrevocable. Every act in our life 
is placed, set, and fixed. 

Every act goes in the record book of 
yesterday and it cannot be changed. 

Acts that hurt others will rebound and 
hurt us. Deeds that helped others will re- 
bound and help us. This much is certain. 

There is a future, I believe that. There 
is a God, I believe that. 

Just what the future is, and just what 
God is, I do not know in perfect detail. 

Reward for good and punishment for 
bad, is part of God's plan, and I am con- 
scious of this truth. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 165 

I know that justice prevails in this life, 
and this life is what I am living now. 

If I live and act today in what I sincerely 
believe is in tune with God's purpose, I 
shall in my future estate benefit by those 
acts. 

If I live and act today, disregarding all 
around me, selfishly catering to personal 
purpose, believing that eternity is every- 
thing and present is nothing, I am passing 
definite opportunity to do good now, for 
a hope of personal reward in an eternity, 
the which is indefinite as to what it shall be. 

I shall therefore strive to do, and to be, 
right; to be kind, helpful, cheery and smil- 
ing now, for the reward such acts bring now. 

And I shall doubtless have as good a 
record and passport to the future as the 
man who suffers now and lives only upon 
his selfish hope of the future. 

His is fear thought, mine is faith thought, 
in the all wise, all powerful, all seeing, all 
right Ruler of the universe, who gave me 
my life, my brain, my reason, which I am 
trying to use, as nearly as my limitations 
will allow, to helping myself and helping 
others to smile, to be happy, to be serene, 



166 EVENING ROUND-UP 

to be confident, to be competent, to be 
useful. 

This is as I see it. I wouldn't do what 
I do, think what I think or act as I act unless 
I were sincere. 

Below all this is charity, which means 
you have the unquestioned right to do and 
to be what your best thought and con- 
science tells you to do and to be. 

Nevertheless it is well to reason with one 
another on the subject of the now and the 
tomorrow of our existence for it is a uni- 
versal subject on which all men must 
make a decision. 






SINCERITY 



Do Not Accept Sincerity as Proof of 
Truth 

"I believe in him because he is so sincere.' ' 

You've heard that, haven't you? I 
never could understand why a sensible per- 
son would use such logic. 

Sincerity is no evidence of truth. The 
Hindu mother is sincere who throws her 
babe to the crocodiles, but her sincerity is 
no proof that by this sacrifice she is sure 
of her salvation. 

The Christian Scientist is sincere in the 
belief that medicines do not cure diseases. 
The doctor is equally sincere that medicines 
will cure disease. 

The Theosophist is sincere, the Atheist, 
the Agnostic, the Christian, the Pagan, the 
Mohammedan, the Buddhist, the Sun- 
worshipper, the Republican, the Democrat, 
the Progressive, the Prohibitionist, the 
Brewer, all these are sincere in their beliefs. 
And as these beliefs are different, it is 
common sense to say that no one creed, 

167 



168 EVENING ROUND-UP 

sect, belief, branch, dogma or system, is all 
truth. 

It is true every channel or avenue we 
meet in life's travel has some truth, but it is 
is not for you or me to assume that we are 
the sole possessors of wisdom and the real 
discoverers of all truth. 

We must not take the conclusions we 
arrive at and expect to force the world to 
accept without protest our rules for con- 
duct, our methods for living, our practices 
for morals, or our beliefs, for their guide. 

Converts to new doctrines, new issues, 
new cults and to the old ones, too, are made 
largely because the ambassadors or prosely- 
ters seem so fervid and sincere in expound- 
ing what they claim is the definite truth. 

The believers in a cult or code of ethics 
are auto hypnotnized, their visions are 
narrowed. 

By focusing their thought on their special 
belief they bring together sophistry, argu- 
ments, examples and so-called proof that 
gives them facility in arguing the case or 
expounding their doctrine. 

You can make no gain to try to argue 
with a Christian Scientist. You ask for 
concrete rules, definite answers and other 



EVENING ROUND-UP 169 

proofs than their flat statements, and you 
are told you have not the understanding, 
that your attitude is not in the right plane, 
and that the truth cannot be shown you. 

You are told to have faith, belief, to 
eliminate antagonism, and to study "Science 
and Health' ' and you will receive the divine 
spirit and see the light. 

The Scientist is "sincere; he shows you 
"Science and Health' ' with a lot of testi- 
monials in the back to prove that Christian 
Science cures disease. Every patent medi- 
cine, every science, every system of healing 
has testimonials by the hundreds. 

Scientists say there is no disease, no 
material, that we are only spirit or soul, or 
thought; that we are not matter but mind. 
That health is truth and disease is error. 
They deny disease yet "Science and Health" 
and the midweek experience meetings have 
testimonials of disease cured by Christian 
Science. 

There is much truth in Christian Science. 
People are helped by it, people are sincere 
in their belief in it, but that Christian 
Science is all truth, all powerful, all right, 
all sufficient, cannot be proven. 

What about the people who have gone 



170 EVENING ROUND-UP 

hence before Christian Science was ever 
heard of? 

The theological religion today, the prac- 
tices and beliefs, differ from the vogue of 
fifty years ago. 

If the Protestant religion be all truth 
what became of our religious ancestors who 
died before Martin Luther found the truth? 

I have no quarrel with the Christian 
Scientist, the Protestant, the Roman Catho- 
lic, the Buddhist, or the Mohammedan. I 
must be generous and broad enough to say 
others have the right to think and be 
sincere. All sciences have truth, but no 
science, sect, cult, dogma, or creed is ALL 
truth. 

Sincerity may be satisfaction and nec- 
essary for the possessors of that sincerity, 
but that your sincerity in your belief must 
be accepted by me as proof that I should 
believe as you do, is, I believe, the place 
where I have the undoubted right to say, 
"I reserve the right to my own conclusions 
and I am unjust to myself if I force myself 
to accept your viewpoint without full belief 
myself that you are right." 

So, then, because a person is sincere in a 
belief that is contrary to your conscientious 



EVENING ROUND-UP 171 

belief, do not be disturbed or swerved from 
common sense analysis or convinced against 
your better judgment. 

No one possesses all the truth. It is for 
you and me to do our plain duty as we see 
it, to do the best we can each day in act 
and thought and word. 

We can pretty much agree on the simple 
essential truths which are proven. That 
is, being honest, truthful, kind, lovable, 
sympathetic, cheerful, doing good, helping 
one another and doing things worth while. 

If we agree on these things and do useful 
work and think helpful thoughts, we are 
doing our duty. 

Theories, arguments and studying too 
deeply on bootless systems, codes, beliefs, 
cults, isms, or doctrines, is a waste of time. 

When we can here and now derive 
definite benefits from doing the simple and 
helpful things and acting and thinking the 
simple practical cheer thoughts, it is not 
necessary or good for us to waste time on 
spiritualism or theoretical beliefs that can- 
not be proved to our own selves satis- 
factorily. 

We are asked to believe these strange, 
impractical, unnatural beliefs, because of 



172 EVENING ROUND-UP 

the sincerity of others. It's better to do, 
and to be the thing we can ourselves 
measure, understand and sincerely believe. 

There are hundreds of strange beliefs and 
spiritual systems, each claiming to be all 
powerful, all right. If any one is all truth 
then all the others are all wrong. 

The bigot who assumes he is the sole 
possessor of truth, the cult, sect, ism, or 
science that claims to possess all truth, and 
the exact rules for the world to obey, should 
be classed with those other misguided men 
and religions which burned human beings 
who dared to doubt their right to the 
possession of all truth. 

God never gave his approval to any one 
man-made religious sect. 

God is the universal good power; man 
often tries to interpret God's idea to his 
own selfish narrow vision. 



PILLS 



The Man Who Has a Pill for Every 111 

How often we see the pill fiend. In his 
vest pocket he has a small apothecary 
shop, a collection of round paste-board 
boxes and little bottles. 

Every little while he dopes himself. If 
his stomach is on a strike he pops in a pill. 
If his head aches he takes a tablet. If he 
sneezes he takes a cold cure pill. 

When anyone around speaks of a pain or 
ache he hands the person a pill. 

The pill eater is a hypochondriac and 
very likely his doctor knows it. The salva- 
tion is that the doctor probably gives him 
harmless stuff in pill form. The patient 
doesn't know this and it's like a rabbit's 
foot or a piece of pork rubbed on a wart; 
it satisfies the mind and nature makes the 
cure. 

Often, however, the pills are not inno- 
cent ; the pill fiend buys the tablets and pills 
direct from the druggist. The headache 
tablet is most likely one of the coal tar 

173 



174 EVENING ROUND-UP 

drugs like acetanilid, and that is positively 
harmful when taken too often. 

There are times to take pills, in cases of 
emergency, when you can shock nature 
with a poison and bring a wholesome 
reaction. 

These times are rare, and the doctor 
should be the sole judge as to when they 
are necessary. 

Exercise, diet, correct habits ol living 
will prevent congestion and illness that 
cause pain. 

The pill habit is nothing less than a drug 
habit, and the drug habit positively weakens 
the system. 

The headache tablet does not cure the 
headache, it only stops the pain; the evil is 
still there. The headache is merely nature's 
signal that something is out of whack. 

Headaches are generally caused by the 
stomach, eye strain, or neuralgia; the latter 
in turn is caused by too much uric acid in 
the system. 

Eat fruit, drink plenty of water, and that 
will flush the system- and stop stomachic 
headache. 

See the optician if it's eyes. If you have 
frequent headache in the forehead, very 



EVENING ROUND-UP 175 

likely it's the eyes, even though you do not 
suspect it. 

If it's neuralgia, get a corrective diet list 
from the doctor. 

I know scores of men and women, too, 
who take pills enough to kill a person. 
Their systems have been educated up to it; 
they are saturated with poison. 

And the worst of it is they never get well 
while taking the pills ; it is only a temporary 
deadening of the pain. 

Then there are many who take pills to 
make them sleep. That's a crime. It's 
murder in slow degrees for they are surely 
shortening their lives by this poison dope 
pill habit. 

Mark this: Nature, and Nature alone, 
effects cures and it's in very, very lew 
instances that a poison pill can be used to 
advantage. 

You can keep well by getting good air, 
good water, good sunshine, good food, good 
exercise, good rest, good cheer and good 
thought. That is what I call my golden 
prescription, and it will do wonders tor 
you, and every doctor will tell you so. 

Pills kill, if you keep up the habit. There 
are no two ways about it. I say positively 



176 EVENING ROUND-UP 

and knowingly, that this pill habit is abso- 
lutely life shortening. 

Don't try to argue; the evidence is un- 
shakable on this point. 

If you had seen the derelicts in the 
hospitals I have seen, if you had seen the 
wretched bodies, destroyed nerve systems, 
the drugged, shattered, hopeless patients 
resulting from the baneful pill habit, you 
would be as positive as I am in saying pills 
kill if you keep up the habit. 

Life is sweet and precious to us all. Do 
not shorten it by taking pills and tablets 
for every ache or pain. Try nature's way. 
Realize that mental suggestion and will 
power will drive away most pains or tem- 
porary aches. 

Brace up, cheer up; chuck the pills in 
the garbage can. 



FAKE MEDICINES 



Like Whiskey, the End Is Near 

Whiskey must go. It is written on the 
pages of the records of man's progress. 
Likewise must the quack doctor and the 
fake medicine go. 

The side-whiskered advertising doctors 
are nothing short of criminal when they by 
powerful use of words magnify symptoms 
and feelings to be grave, serious lore- 
runners of awful disease, and by fright, 
bring in the hypochondriac to his spider- 
web and filch him in a manner no better 
than a thief uses. The thief is really more 
honorable, for he steals because he wants 
your money and makes no bones about it. 

The doctor charlatan steals your money 
under the guise of being your benefactor. 

As I have explained in "Pep," illness, 
feeling out of sorts, local pains and sickness, 
unless of the contagious or infectious kind, 
are largely conditions of the mind and of 
food habits, and surely are accentuated by 
fear thought. 

Because people have off days, and aches 

177 



178 EVENING ROUND-UP 

and pains, the frock-coated, white lawn tie 
doctors and pseudo professors work on 
the minds and imaginations, magnify trifles 
into troubles, then when the victims lose 
courage these charlatans rob them under 
the guise of professional advice and treat- 
ment. 

Most of the temporary ailments are 
caused by constipation, wrong diet or lack 
of exercise. The doctor gives a laxative, 
nature re-asserts herself, and the patient is 
cured. 

Chronic ailments require long treatments, 
so as to make long bills and many visits 
for che quack doctor. 

Read "Pep" and fool the doctors. Your 
health and happiness are things largely in 
your own control. 

When you feel you must have a doctor, 
go to your family physician and not to a 
strange doctor who advertises. His adver- 
tisement is merely a spiderweb to catch 
and hold you while he robs you. 

It is a hopeful sign of the brighter future 
to which man is progressing, that the 
respectable papers will not lend their aid 
to swindling doctors. The best papers will 
not carry these doctor or fake medicine ads. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 179 

Before long the government will pass laws 
on this baneful, shameful, quack advertis- 
ing. Quack doctors, gambling houses, liquor 
selling, are all swindling methods to get 
money, and in the getting they are killing 
men, ruining homes, destroying happiness, 
holding back progress. 

The one object of the quack doctor is to 
size you up and see what you "are good 
for. ,, "Good for" means how much money 
can he get from you and how long can he 
keep you as a patient to contribute to his 
coffers. 

Let every reader of this book enroll as 
an opponent to quack doctors and quack 
medicines, and by word and influence help 
to hasten the day when such pernicious 
swindlers are things of the past. You can't 
get health out of a bottle. 

And this is true. 



THE CHURCH 



It Is Hampered By Too Many 
Sects 

No two minds can see the same picture, 
nor can two persons with logic, on religion, 
come to the same definite conclusion. 

The old Scripture said, "An eye lor an 
eye and a tooth for a tooth.' ' The new 
Scripture teaches us to "turn the other 
cheek' ' and "love your enemies." 

Two hundred years ago they burned 
witches. 

Thirty years ago the preacher who took 
exception to the universal belief of a hell 
of fire and brimstone was thrown out of 
the church. Today no preacher believes 
in such a hell. 

Present day religion is really a Sunday 
religion. One and a half hours a week the 
members of the church join in singing "we 
shall know each other there." The remain- 
der of the week they make it a point to 
keep from knowing each other here. 

The protestant church divides itself into 
a lot of sects, each one built on some par- 
ticular ordinance or practice and each one 

180 



EVENING ROUND-UP 181 

swallows a camel and strains at a gnat* 
One sect insists that baptism shall be by 
immersion because the disciples baptized 
that way. They believe in following cus- 
toms literally, yet in the cities they immerse 
the members in a big tub under the pulpit, 
which practice is entirely different from the 
method employed by John the Baptist 

One sect insists upon having a com- 
munion every Sunday because the Bible 
says, "as often as you do this," etc. To be 
literal in the matter of communion, the 
Lord's Supper should be served at night 
as the original was, and it should be supper 
and not a few pieces of broken crackers. 

The sect that insists on following the 
Scriptures in the matter ot baptism by 
immersion fails to follow the Scriptures in 
the matter of washing the feet or anointing 
the head. 

Many years ago the church considered it 
a sacrilege to use an organ. Today they 
have orchestras and hire operatic singers. 

So it seems that the church is broadening 
out. Thinking men believe that religion 
should not be an auto-intoxication of self- 
condemnation or worry, sobs and misery. 
Because so much of this sort ot teaching is 



182 EVENING ROUND-UP 

prevalent the church is not making the 
gains it should. The church is largely sup- 
ported by nice little women, many of them 
maiden ladies who have little to do, and 
know little of the great problems ot the 
busy world. 

I am thoroughly convinced that the 
church must recognize that evolution is 
taking place, that we are to be more charit- 
able, more broad in our views, less technical 
in our tenets and more practical in our work. 

We will have to cut down the lences 
between the sects and all get together in 
the great field for a common cause rather 
than trying to maintain little independent 
vineyards. 

Religion must teach smiles and joy, 
courage and brotherly love, instead of 
frowns, dejection, fear and envy. 

It must teach how to be and how to get 
good out of our today on earth. If we are 
good and do good here, we certainly will 
help our future prospects. 

Certainly we are progressing from nar- 
rowness, bigotry, selfishness and envy, to 
broadness, reason, brotherly love and con- 
tentment, and we shall progress from the 
narrow confines of obstinate orthodoxy or 



EVENING ROUND-UP 183 

bulldogmatics, by breaking down the sect, 
cult, ism, and doxy barriers until we all 
join in a universal church in which all can 
put their hearts and beliefs, in which all 
can find full range for their spiritual belief 
and expression. 

That big, broad, right church will be in 
harmony with God's purpose. 

The Creator made all men and He doesn't 
confine His love or His interest to any one 
little man-made narrow sect, or creed. 

"God is love." "Love thy neighbor." 
"Help the weak, cheer the grief stricken." 
Those are the commands and purposes we 
find everywhere in the Scriptures. 

"He that believeth in me shall be saved." 
That's a definite promise and it is not 
qualified with a lot of creed paragraphs and 
beliefs. That promise doesn't have any 
buts of ifs. It doesn't say we shall be 
saved whether we are Methodists or Catho- 
lics, or Baptists or Presbyterians. Those 
names are man-made, and creeds of those 
churches are man-made, too. 

At the congress of religions in the World's 
Fair at Chicago over three hundred religions 
and sects were represented by delegates 
from, all over the world, and every one 



184 EVENING ROUND-UP 

there with hearty accord sang, "Praise God 
From Whom All Blessings Flow" and 
"Rock of Ages." Those hymns were uni- 
versal; they fitted all creeds and sects. 

Big men in the church are intensely 
interested in the get-together, universal 
church, and each year will mark a definite 
progress toward amalgamation of sects and 
divisions. 

There should be no Methodist Church 
North and Methodist Church South. 

There should not be churches like the 
Congregational and Presbyterian, whose 
creeds are identical, the difference being 
only in the officers. 

The country village of 1,000 population 
has five churches; it should have only one. 
The country is full of half starved preachers 
and weak, struggling congregations. 

The get-together movement will help 
religion, and it's going to happen surely. 



INVENTORY 



A Necessary Practice to Bring 
Efficiency 

Every year the business man goes over 
his stock, tools, fixtures, and accounts, and 
prepares a statement of assets and liabilities 
so as to get a fairly accurate understanding 
of his profit and loss. 

If he didn't take this inventory his net 
worth would be guess work. 

This inventory deals with money and 
things which are mixed more or less with 
the human element and affected more or 
less by conditions or trade, crops, competi- 
tion, supply and demand. 

The business man takes all these condi- 
tions into consideration in preparing lor 
the coming year. He red flags the mistakes 
and green flags the good plans. 

The business man should carry the inven- 
tory further. Every month or so he should 
take a careful inventory of himself, putting 
down his assets of health, initiative, pa- 
tience, ability to work, smiles, honesty, 
sincerity, and the like. So also he must 

185 



186 EVENING ROUND-UP 

put down in the debit side the pull backs, 
hindrances and other business killers in the 
list of liabilities. These items are smooth- 
ness, untruth, unfairness, grouchiness, im- 
patience, worry, ill health, gloom, mean- 
ness, broken word, unfulfilled promises and 
the like. 

In making up the inventory pay particular 
attention to your habits : smoking, drinking, 
over-eating, useless display, useless social 
functions and other useless things that pull 
on your nerves and your pocket book. 

Then check up department A, which is 
your family. How have you dealt with 
your family and children? 

Department B is friends; how do you 
stand in your treatment ot them? 

Department C, all other persons. Did 
you lie to, cheat, steal from or defraud any 
one? How much cash profit did you make? 
How much less a man did the act make you? 

Go over your self-respect account. Does 
it show profit or loss. 

Check up your employees' account. What 
has your stewardship shown? Have you 
drawn the employees closer, or driven them 
further from you? 

Analyze your spiritual account. Is your 



EVENING ROUND-UP 187 

religious beliet a sham or conviction? Do 
you sing on Sunday, "we shall know each 
other there/ ' or do you make it a point to 
know and love your brother here, seven 
days a week. 

Be fair in your inventory. Write down 
the facts in the two columns "good" and 
"bad," then go over the list and put a red 
danger flag on the bad. Keep the list until 
next inventory and see whether you have 
made a gain or loss in your net moral 
standing. 

Don't read this and say, "a good idea." 
Do the thing literally. 

Take a clean sheet ot paper and write 
your personal assets and liabilities down in 
the two columns marked "good" and "bad." 

If this inventory doesn't help then you 
may call me a false prophet. 

I know the plan is a good one. I know it 
will help you. If it helps you, you will 
thank me. There can be no harm in trying, 
because it's a worth-while thing to test. 

The business man who never takes inven- 
tory is likely to go bump some day. 



EGOTISM 



Those Who Decry It Most Have It 
Most 

The ego is in us. It is good to have, but 
egotism needs the soft pedal when we speak 
or do things. 

Many people are unconscious ot their 
egotism yet they suggest between lines in 
their conversation, "even I who am super- 
ior to the herd would do this or that." 

For instance, two persons were arguing 
about the merits ot an inexpensive auto- 
mobile. Parenthetically I may say one 
belonged to the Ford class and the other 
to the can't afford class. A can't aftord 
snob came to the rescue of the Ford cham- 
pion by saying, "that's a good car; why, I 
wouldn't mind owning one of them my- 
self," and he beamed at the party with the 
consciousness of having settled the matter 
and removed the stigma from the Ford car. 

The egotism crops out often when one 
shows a group picture in which he appears. 
He doesn't wait for you to find him; he 

188 



EVENING ROUND-UP 189 

pokes his arm over your shoulder and says, 
"that's me." 

To each of us in the manner of things 
the I is the center of our world. We see 
things always through our I's. 

If we wish to get along without friction 
we must remember that the other fellow 
has his I's also, and when we try to make 
him see things through our I's it makes 
trouble. 

The hall mark of education, refinement 
and character in the broad sense is the 
ability to exclude the personal so far as 
possible from our conversation. And be big 
enough to grant to others their undoubted 
right to see and think from their own 
standpoint. 

Argument develops egotism more than 
most any other thing will. 

How often have you convinced another 
in an argument? 

How often have you been convinced in 
an argument? 

The world is big, there are millions of 
others in it and our job is a big one if we 
'tend pretty well to our own knittin'. 



PERSEVERANCE 



It Is the Last Step in the Race 
That Counts 

Four hundred and twenty-three years 
ago Christopher Columbus landed on an 
island which he thought was India. 

Chris was mighty happy as he put his 
foot on good old mother earth; not so much 
because he had discovered a new way to 
India, as he thought, but because his loot 
touched land. 

Two days before he landed on San Salva- 
dor his crew pitched into him and threat- 
ened to throw him in the sea and turn about 
the ship to Spain. 

If Chris had shown the white feather, 
1492 would not be the date of the first line 
in the geography, announcing the "Dis- 
covery of America." 

Chris had perseyerance, the stuff that 
makes men successful. 

He started to find India by sailing west- 
ward. He didn't succeed in his purpose, 
but his determination was rewarded just 

190 



EVENING ROUND-UP 191 

the same, for he found a new country, and 
that was worth while. 

Before he started he was promised ten 
per cent of the revenue from any lands he 
might discover. Just imagine what that 
would mean today. 

Columbus had perseverance and pep, and 
his unwavering fidelity to his cause brought 
him success in his efforts. 

The world has improved since 1492, but 
the percentage of men who would keep on 
like Columbus did has not increased, 
perhaps. 

Columbus sailed with three ships, the 
largest sixty-six feet long. He steered to 
the direction of the setting sun. His crew 
was 120 men. None of them were enthu- 
siastic at the start; all of them disgusted, 
discouraged and ready to mutiny at the 
last. 

But Christopher kept the ships pointed 
West, through rain, shine, through drifting 
breezeless days and through storms. He 
kept on, and on and on, and he brought 
home the bacon, which being interpreted 
means success crowned his efforts. 

Perseverance and pep produce prosperity, 
peace and plenty. 



192 EVENING ROUND-UP 

It was the mileage made on October 12th, 
1492, that counted. 

It is the last step in a race that counts. 

It is the last stroke on the nail that 
counts. 

The moral is that many a prize has been 
lost just when it was ready to be plucked. 

Perseverance — patience — pluck — pep 
— are particularly profitable if pursued until 
you ring the bell. 



GEOLOGY 



The Earth's Incontestible Pages of 
Truth 

On the wall in the room where I write 
these lines is a fossil herring which the 
boys dug up in the Rockies near Frozen Dog, 
at an altitude of six thousand feet. 

The herring is a salt water fish proving 
that the country around Frozen Dog was 
at one time under the sea. 

A few weeks ago, in the Missouri River 
bottom near Omaha, some Harvard scient- 
ists discovered the remains of three ancient 
towns, one buried on top of the other. 

In the Nile valley in Egypt nine towns, 
in one location, have been unearthed, each 
town in a different strata of alluvial deposit. 

The ninth or top city is the ancient City 
of Memphis, once the largest city in the 
world. 

Those cities and the mute eloquence of 
my fossil herring plainly point out the iact 
that the world is millions of years old. 

Last summer I found some coral on 
Washington Island, which is off the point 

193 



194 EVENING ROUND-UP 

ot land where Lake Michigan and Green 
Bay meet. Coral is only lormed in salt 
water. 

Geologists tell me that Washington Island 
and surrounding country plainly shows 
marks of three distinct glacial periods. 

Several times the poles were in the 
tropical climate, and consequently the trop- 
ics or the temperate zones at least were 
under permanent snow and ice. 

The earth changes its axis every few 
thousand centuries, that we know. 

The rains and snows wash the earth to 
the sea, depositing layers of sand and 
sediment, which as the ages go by, turn to 
stone and form permanent pages that man 
may read in succeeding eras. 

During the world's changes, vast surfaces 
of earth and rock are lifted to mountain 
heights and other places lowered and the 
sea covers them. 

Thus the habitations of man have been 
buried, new earth covered them, new towns 
were built and again the covering process. 

Scientists are deciphering the story of 
the earth and its people. Babylonia and 
Egypt left records which our learned men 
can read, but ages and eons before these 



EVENING ROUND-UP 195 

ancients there were races who could not 
write even crude picture or hieroglyphic 
languages, and probably we shall never 
know much about these very old times. 

Around our Mississippi Valley we know 
of Mound Builders before our Indians. In 
the Southwest the relics of the clift dwellers 
are abundant. 

This summer at Salt Lake City I saw 
seven mummies of fair-haired people that 
were discovered in Southern Utah. 

Near Naples, in digging a well, the work- 
men found statuary, jewelry and cooking 
utensils. The Italian government began 
excavating and they opened up to modern 
gaze an old city. The town was Pompeii. 

People may now walk the streets ol old 
Pompeii as freely as the streets ol Kansas 
City, and the old pavements are likewise 
worn and torn like the present streets of 
Kansas City. 

The residents of Pompeii had fine plumb- 
ing, baths and luxuries. 

They had a place called a vomitorium. 
The old Roman sports were gluttons; they 
stuffed themselves, then went to the vomi- 
torium and threw up so they could eat more. 

Near Pompeii is the ancient buried city 



196 EVENING ROUND-UP 

of Herculaneum, but it is covered with 
lava, hard as granite, while Pompeii is 
covered with ashes. 

Our western hemisphere is called the new 
world, but all parts of the world are equally 
old. 

The Missouri River swelled up and 
washed out a big cul de sac and bared those 
three towns near Omaha. We haven't dug 
much in America but likely in a few years 
we will discover some old towns equally as 
ancient as Pompeii. 

Verily, this earth of ours has had humans 
on it for more than the 6,000 years our 
written records give as its age. 



PATRIOTISM 



An Intoxicant That Often Turns 
Men Into Murderers 

A false patriotism, an inherited accept- 
ance of servility and obedience, makes the 
foreigners meek, sheep-like men. 

This great war, and most every great 
war of the past, is possible because ot a 
distorted understanding of patriotism. 

Patriotism began away back yonder when 
sons and daughters were taught love and 
loyalty to the pater, the father. The 
patriarchs of old extended the patriot idea 
to the tribe and later as tribes banded 
together and formed nations. The patriot- 
ism principle was the basis for the bond 
that tied men together for a common cause. 

Now patriotism is bounded by geographi- 
cal lines and national boundary lines. The 
patriotism is most sincere, and most solemn, 
for men willingly sacrifice their lives for it. 

But, really, this patriotism is one ot the 
narrowest and most cruel forces in the 
world. It causes wars, waste and desolation. 

197 



198 EVENING ROUND-UP 

It makes jealousies, braggadocio and keeps 
up the fight spirit. 

The false patriotism is an obstacle to 
broader human progress, brotherly love 
and the finer things in life. 

Kings and rulers, fired by selfish egotism, 
know full well what a powerful force 
patriotism is and they nurse the babes with 
fatherland stuff and give them tin soldiers 
to play with and tin helmets to wear. 

Patriotism, when it reflects love of the 
place of one's nativity, when it spells home 
and love and association, is a natural and a 
beautiful sentiment. 

But patriotism, as fomented and fostered 
by governments for war spurs and goads, 
is a monster that lives on blood. 

To keep this false patriotism alive, wars 
must be made, so that human blood can be 
secured to save the monster from perishing. 
Human blood fires and intoxicates this 
false patriotism behemoth. 

And so, on slight pretexts Kings are 
insulted. War lords have put out chips on 
their shoulders on purpose to be knocked 
off, and when the chip is brushed off then 
comes the declaration of war. 

The banner, patriotism, is flaunted in 



EVENING ROUND-UP 199 

the air. It is the shibboleth of the red 
blooded, hot headed, bravest and best of 
the nation, the youth, who die in countless 
thousands — for what? 

Such patriotism is failure and worse than 
failure. It is hindrance to civilization. 

These bewildered men have let reason 
escape, and intoxicated false patriotism 
poison come in their brains to take the place 
of reason. 

In their delirium they try to appear con- 
sistent, logical and abused. In their ex- 
tremity they try to co-ordinate their acts 
with God's mind. 

Each nation has its own interpretation of 
the Divine will. Each asks Divine help 
for his nation. 

God looks at the maddened millions of 
insane murderers and his heart is torn as 
He sees the avalanche of tears shed by 
bereaved wives and children. 

The patriotism that is responsible for 
starting this war is a mockery, a snare, a 
delusion, and deserves the profoundest con- 
tempt of every man who loves his fellow man. 

Europe has certainly put riot in pa- 
triotism. 



RIDICULE 



A Poor Vehicle for Humor 

The man who ridicules everything is on 
the toboggan slide and he will finish the 
slide as an out-and-out grouch. 

You and I know men who never have a 
pleasant word to say of anyone, or a serious 
commendation of anything. 

Ridicule and sarcasm are often coated 
with would-be humor, and try to pass for 
puns. By and by, however, this ridicule 
and sarcasm gets to be a habit, and the 
coat of humor becomes threadbare. 

Just at this time friends depart, for the 
grouch phase of the disease has started. 

Sarcasm and ridicule are powerful 
weapons when used adroitly and for good 
purposes. But when sarcasm and ridicule 
are used constantly as a means to generate 
fun or as vehicles for. humor, then the evil 
commences. 

People will listen to you for awhile, if 
you good-naturedly ridicule a thing, but 
when you are known to have the habit, 
then is when friends give you the go-by. 

200 



EVENING ROUND-UP 201 

Sarcasm and ridicule wound deeply; they 
are hot pokers jabbed in quivering flesh. 

Don't juggle with ridicule or sarcasm, tor 
people look beneath the veneer nowadays. 
They remember and repeat the axiom, 
"there's many a true word spoken in jest." 

There are so many beautiful things to 
say, so many kind expressions to utter, so 
many helpful hints to give, that we should 
be ashamed to say or do things even jok- 
ingly that may hurt another. 

Safest way is to run no chances. When 
you ridicule a thing or a person, you may 
ridicule the tender heart of one you should 
cheer and help. 

Ridicule is the negative element anyway; 
the only good it can be is by reflex or 
rebound force. 

Ridicule is conceived by the humor idea. 
It is used because it so easily lends itself 
to a seeming clever way to create a laugh. 

Humor of the clean sort is a rare gilt. 
Humor may easily descend to low comedy 
by use of ridicule, and often the audience 
does not differentiate between low comedy 
and rare humor. 

The masses will laugh when the comedian 
on the stage hits his friend with a club; 



202 EVENING ROUND-UP 

that sort of fun-making satisfies adults who 
have children's brains and such brain- 
constructed people will also laugh at jokes 
which ride on ridicule. But you who read 
these lines are worthy of better things; 
that's why you are reading this book. It, 
in my audience there are those who have 
the ridicule habit, I want to arouse you to 
a better sense of humor than you can get 
by the employment of ridicule and sarcasm. 

I don't want you to descend to the level 
of the grouch. The slide-down is so easy, 
the climbing back and up from the depth 
is so very hard. 

Ridicule and sarcasm are cheap, slap- 
stick methods to produce fun. They leave 
a sting many times when you are not 
aware of it. 

When fighting whiskey, sin, corruption 
or evil hosts, then use burning ridicule and 
caustic sarcasm to sizzle and destroy the 
things that need to be destroyed. 

Now I've told you, and next time you 
find yourself using ridicule or sarcasm to 
provoke mirth remember you are toying 
with a habit -forming practice that is likely 
to get the best of you unless you stop and 
stop now. 



THE WIFE 



She Is Your Partner, Don't Cheat 
Her 

A wife is either a partner or an employee. 
If a partner, she has a right to the fifty- 
fifty split on profits; if an employee she is 
entitled to her wages. 

A thrifty husband is commendable, but 
a show-me-what-you-did-with-that-money 
husband should be punished by being sen- 
tenced to attend pink teas, afternoon recep- 
tions, and to match samples at the dry 
goods store. 

Married folks must be on the partnership 
basis, or there's sand in the gear box. 

Give the wife the check-book; let her pay 
the bills; tote fair with her; show her and 
give her just what your income affords, and 
what economic and wise administration 
warrants; she'll cut the cloth to fit the 
garment. 

When the husband questions every turn, 
every move, every cent, the wife feels like 
a prisoner or a slave. Wives will do good 

203 



204 EVENING ROUND-UP 

team work when they are broken to double 
harness with their husbands. 

Women are generally raised without any 
requirements of economy; they are pretty 
birds, and used to preening and smoothing 
their plumage and looking pretty. 

It's the female instinct in the human. In 
the animal world the male has the plumage 
and does the strutting and fascinating act; 
but in the human animal the female is the 
bird with the bright plumage. 

You can't expect her to know about 
pennies and purses and prudent purchases 
the moment you slip the ring on her finger. 

But she's an intelligent filly and she'll go 
in double harness much better if trained 
and coaxed and petted than she will if she 
is haltered, broke and a Spanish bit put in 
her mouth by the husband's stinginess. 

She'll shop better than her husband if 
he takes an interest in her shopping and 
encourages her in 'her economical adminis- 
tration of the household budget. 

She wants a word of appreciation once 
in a while. She chills under the surveillance 
and parsimony of an eagle-eyed, detective, 
lawyer-like husband. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 205 

She's a sweet bird and sweet birds and 
hawks don't nest well together. 

Where the hawk and the dove are in the 
same cage the feathers will fly. 

As I came through the park this morning 
I saw a pair of robins who have the right 
idea. They share home responsibilities and 
do fine team work. I think they are mighty 
happy, too ; daddy red breast looked mighty 
proud as he hustled worms for the family 
breakfast. 

Mamma robin looked down with loving 
eyes at her hubby, and the little baby robins 
sang a chorus of joy at the very privilege of 
living in such a home. 

Worry will fly out of the window the 
moment the husband and wife lay their 
cards on the table and play the open hand. 
The moment one or the other keeps a lew 
cards in the sleeve, then worry and trouble 
comes back. 

The moral of this is : husbands and wives, 
live together, get together, stay together, 
play together, save together, grow together, 
share together. Travel the same road; 
don't take different paths. 



MENTAL PLEASURES 



The Rarest, Sweetest Pleasures in 
the World 

There are two principal pleasures man 
seeks; one is material pleasures and that 
takes in about ninety-nine per cent ot the 
human family. 

The other, the one per cent, seeks mental 
pleasures, and this little group is the one 
that gets the real, lasting, satisfying and 
improving pleasures. 

Material pleasures are eating, displaying, 
possessing, and society. Material pleasures 
generate in the human the desire for fluff, 
feathers, and four-flushing. 

Material pleasures accentuate the desire 
to possess things, and in the strife lor 
possession hearts are broken, fortunes 
wasted, nerves shattered and finer senti- 
ments calloused. 

The homes where material pleasures 
abound are the ones where worry, neuras- 
thenia and nervous prostration abound. 

Material pleasures are merely stimulants 
for the time being, and there always comes 

206 



EVENING ROUND-UP 207 

the intermittent reflexes of gloom and 
depression. 

The desire to show off, to excite envy in 
others, is always present at the homes where 
material pleasures are the rule. 

Material pleasures call for crowds. 
Mental pleasures are best enjoyed in soli- 
tude. 

The material pleasure seeker lives a lite 
of convention, engagements, routine, action, 
strain and high tension. 

The person who is so fortunate as to 
appreciate and follow mental pleasures, is 
serene, natural, happy and content. 

A cozy room, loved ones around, music, 
books, love and social conversation, those 
are mental pleasures; those are best. 

He who can pick up a book, and read 
things worth while, gets satisfaction un- 
known to those whose life is banquets, 
theaters, dances, automobiles, parties, 
bridge, clubs and society doings. 

The lover of books and home can enjoy 
the play, because he only goes to plays 
worth while, and he doesn't overdo it. 

The confirmed theater-goer is a pessimist ; 
he roasts nearly every play, and he is 
universally bored. 



208 EVENING ROUND-UP 

Get the home reading habit. Don't over- 
do it. Call on friends, go to a good picture 
show once in a while; to good concerts; to 
good plays, but do not make this going out 
in the evening plan a habit. Let it be 
merely a dessert, or a rarity; like candy and 
ice cream, proper and enjoyable when 
taken in moderation. 

When you get started reading worth- 
while books on science, on history, on 
geography, on travel, on natural history, 
you will get into an inexhaustible field of 
pleasure and satistaction. 

Any time you can pick up your book and 
be happy. 

Waits in railway stations will be oppor- 
tunities; trips on trains will be pleasant; 
evenings alone will be enjoyable, it you 
can get into a book you like. 

Mental pleasures are best. 

Material pleasures are merely passing 
pleasures. 



PANAMA 



The Man Who Found It and the 
Man Who Used It 

Four hundred years ago Jim Balboa 
climbed a mountain peak on the Isthmus 
of Panama, and looked on the boundless 
Pacific and said: "I have this day dis- 
covered you, and henceforth the geographies 
will perpetuate this great event.' ' 

Little did Jim think that by 1914 ships 
of twenty thousand tons would sail through 
the impassable mountains. 

Jim knew he had discovered something 
great, but little did he dream of the real 
greatness of the world's future. Little did 
he dream that the vast new continent on 
whose neck he stood was to hold the great- 
est nation of the twentieth century. 

Gold, new territory for kings, new fields 
for the church — were the magnets which 
drew early navigators like Balboa to the 
land in the West across the Atlantic. 

Those early adventurers little thought of 
exploiting their discoveries for the benefit 
of mankind. 

209 



210 EVENING ROUND-UP 

It is a long time and a far cry from Capt. 
Balboa to Colonel Goethals, from the dis- 
coverer to the constructor, and it is our 
good fortune to see and enjoy a work 
beyond the wildest dreams of Columbus, 
Balboa, Cortez and the other wanderlust 
adventurers. 

Not only that, but the Panama Canal, 
now opened to the world, was for years 
deemed a chimerical dream and an impossi- 
bility, by the world as well as by most 
Americans. 

Every ditch digger, including the great 
De Lesseps, proved a failure, so to Yankee 
grit in the person of Goethals belongs the 
credit for the completed work which is now 
called the "Eighth Wonder of the World.' ' 

The Pyramids, the hanging gardens of 
Babylon, are wonders, but we have a 
Yankee contractor who can duplicate them 
if anyone puts up the money for the job. 

We do not build pyramids or hanging 
gardens because they serve no useful pur- 
pose. 

The Panama Canal is a greater wonder 
and is a most practical benefit to mankind. 
It doubles our navy; it enables us to move 



EVENING ROUND-UP 211 

supplies of every kind from one coast to 
the other quickly and less expensively. 

It shortens the world's highway between 
the oceans and helps every human being. 

Balboa's name will live in geographies as 
the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean, but 
Goethals' name will be remembered as the 
man who made most use of that discovery 
for the benefit of mankind. 

The shades of Balboa and De Lesseps 
likely stalk around Panama at midnight 
and rub their eyes in amazement. 



TODAY 



The One Time in Our Keeping 

As I walk on the old Santa Fe Trail each 
morning through Penn Valley Park in 
Kansas City, the marks of time are plainly 
visible. 

Erosion of water and wind have bared 
the sedimentary rocks and exposed the 
layers in well denned pages so I may study 
this great rock-paged geology book, and 
indeed it's a pleasure to me. 

Back of all is the grand plan of the 
Universe of which this earth is an atom. 
That plan is ruled by a Divine law and 
power. 

For you or me to take a fragment of 
truth and attempt to pass it as a definite 
science, a complete religion or all truth, is 
an assumption which these records of 
countless ages frown upon as a hopeless, 
bootless task. 

All science has some truth; all creeds, 
sects, isms and cults likewise have truth, 
but no branch or group possesses all truth. 

My fossil fish on the wall wiggled his tail 

212 



EVENING ROUND-UP 213 

thousands of years ago, very likely millions 
of years. 

He lived and died in accordance with the 
plan of the Creator of the Universe and 
you are an atom and I am an atom in that 
Universe and governed by the power that 
gave life and crushed to death that fossil 
fish. 

Verily we presume when we say, "we 
have all the truth; think as we do or you 
are lost." 

The old world has not told its full story. 
The Universe of which this world is a part 
is still a deeper mystery. 

We shall not know all truth until the 
great revealing time. 

We cannot change the pages of the 
millions of years gone by. We can do very 
little to change the pages of the millions of 
years to come. What little we can do, we 
can only do TODAY. 

Today is yours and mine; let's do the 
best we can with our possession in act and 
thought and word. 

The sun goes down behind the sky-line 
on the West as it has done for millions of 
years. I lay aside my pen with a bigger 
view, a deeper appreciation of the Creator 



214 EVENING ROUND-UP 

and a profounder faith in His wisdom and 
works than ever. 

God made. God rules. God plans. And 
verily we are weaklings and foolish, who 
presume by selfish prayer to suggest to Him 
what He shall do. 

Let us strive to be appreciative of Him 
and try to lift ourselves in sublime thought 
into the higher faith thought and realize 
that we are part of Him and His plan, and 
failure is impossible to us, if we keep up 
and on, doing good, speaking softly, deal- 
ing gently, showing kindness today and 
living in accordance with the big, broad, 
generous, charitable plan instead ot the 
little, bigoted, narrow, selfish idea that we 
are sole possessors of truth and that the 
man who differs with us in belief is in error. 

This chapter is about big things and in it 
is a big moral for all who are big enough to 
grasp it. 



DAD 

All for You, Old Man, and It's 
Timely 

This is your inning, Dad. 

There has been so many beautiful things 
written about Mother and all the rest of 
the family that it is high time we should 
tell you how we love you and how we 
appreciate you. 

You've worked so hard; you've been so 
ambitious to do things for your loved ones, 
and they have accepted your sacrifices, 
work, and watchfulness as matter of fact. 

You've had dreams of a some day when 
you would relax and play and enjoy, but 
you have set that some day too far ahead. 
You consider yourself after all your loved 
ones are more comfortable and happy, and 
time is passing, Dad; the marks ot time are 
showing on your poor, tired head; the 
wrinkles of care are marking your face, and 
the roses are bleaching from your cheeks. 

You are too unselfish, too much centered 
in that some day. Let's change things a 
bit, Dad. Sometimes the some day doesn't 
come. 

215 



216 EVENING ROUND-UP 

You are entitled to, and it's your duty 
to have, happiness and pleasures and health 
and joys, right here now today. 

Your loved ones do not want you to 
spend your health getting wealth. They 
don't want to see you worn out, tired, 
weary and unhappy in the evening of your 
life. Besides it's your duty to let them 
share responsibility and work out their 
own problems. They will be better if you 
let them gain knowledge by practical ex- 
perience. 

Come on, Dad; get in the group and 
enjoy things now and you will live longer and 
you will get more out of life and give more 
pleasure to your loved ones. Get in the 
game, Dad; let's see the old light and 
twinkle in your eyes; let's have the sun- 
shine on your face; the love-light on your 
lips and the happiness in your heart. Come 
on, Dad, we all want-you to do these things. 

Leave your cares at the office; come on 
and play, and you will be so much better 
and stronger and so much more successful 
in your business. 

Let's have the corners of your mouth 
turned up tonight at the supper table; be 



EVENING ROUND-UP 217 

part of the family, Dad, not a poor, tired 
bread winner. 

We don't want to hear any more sh — 
sh — or whispers when you come home. 
We don't want to feel that restraint and 
uncomfortable feeling; let's laugh and sing 
and love and play — let's make your home- 
coming a joyous event. 

We all love you, Dad, but you haven't 
made it as comfortable as you might for us 
when we try to express our love. You've 
been too tired, too busy, too much occupied 
with those business thoughts. 

Don't you see how we love you, and how 
we appreciate you? Don't you know that 
there is no one in the world who can take 
the place of Dad? 

Keep your heart young, Dad; we will 
help if you only say "come on." We are 
waiting for the signal. Let's start the new 
schedule tonight; come on, Dad, what do 
you say? 



CRYING BABIES 



When They Cry There's a Reason; 
Find It 

Now come the wise doctors with the 
injunction to let the baby cry. They tell 
us it's good for the baby's lungs and that 
the baby needs the exercise and all that 
sort of rot. 

They augment this with the statement 
that if we soothe or coddle our babies they 
will get the habit and require our attention 
always before they go to sleep. 

Old Mother Nature has been pretty suc- 
cessful in raising animals. Let the kitten, 
dog, pig or chicken give the sign of pain or 
distress and the mother will hasten to its 
offspring and nestle it. 

When a baby cries, it's because it's 
hungry, or too warm or too hot or too 
uncomfortable, or ijt has pain or distress. 
It's just nature's instinct given by God to 
the helpless infant that it may call atten- 
tion to its trouble. The doctor would com- 
plain if uncomfortable. The doctor or the 
parent can help himself, but the baby can 
use its only signal, a cry. 

218 



EVENING ROUND-UP 219 

When baby cries it should be taken up 
and soothed. Don't pay any attention to 
the doctor who says the baby cries to be 
petted; baby can't reason in its infant 
days; its little brain hasn't reached the 
reasoning powers. 

Doctors constantly protest and warn us 
against over exertion on the part of children 
and even adults; yet they tell us to let the 
few-weeks-old baby cry, which is the most 
violent and extreme exertion it can put 
forth. 

Crying puts a strain on all the baby's 
vital organs and its delicate, fragile blood 
vessels and heart. There have been thou- 
sands of babies who have had irreparable 
damage done to their constitutions because 
of this cold-blooded, heartless fad of the 
doctors, to let baby cry. 

Many a mother's heart is torn and 
wrung because of the doctor's order, "Let 
the baby cry." 

The mother is worked up into an excited 
nervous condition by the doctor's inhuman 
order to let the baby cry, and this same 
doctor tells her not to become excited 
because it will have a bad effect on her 
nursing baby. Just read this paragraph 



220 EVENING ROUND-UP 

over again and see if the doctor hasn't 
crossed his logic wires and insulted common 
sense. 

The doctors become calloused; they are 
used to seeing pain and suffering. It's easy 
for them to endure pain in others, and easy 
for them to give them heartless orders. 

And generally the doctor who affects 
most knowledge about baby rearing is the 
one who has no babies of his own. 

Dr. Walls of Chicago is one of the most 
eminent child specialists in the world and 
he agrees with my conclusions in this matter 
and so does most every really great child 
specialist I know. 

When baby cries, find the reason; change 
its position; see if there is a pin sticking; 
find out whether it's heat, cold, hunger or 
pain. 

There's a reason why babies cry. My 
wife is emphatic on that point and she has 
reared three mighty, fine babies, and I have 
watched and helped her. 



GIRL 
Be a Know Girl, Not a Show Girl 

Girl, what a wonderful creature you can 
be. What a glorious success you can make 
of your life, if you get the right start, the 
right hands to help you, the right hearts 
to love you, and the right eyes to watch 
you, the right thoughts to make you, and 
the right ideals to guide you. 

There are so many influences to spoil 
you, so much convention, so much artifi- 
ciality, so much snobbery, so much caste, 
so much foolish frivolity. 

Then there are the wrong examples, the 
wrong grooming, the wrong environments, 
the wrong influences surrounding you, that 
it is not to be wondered why so many girls 
lose their heads and make a fizzle oi their 
young lives. 

The fizzle is generally because daddy and 
mamma have a lot of foolish notions about 
bringing up the girls. Especially is this so 
if the parents are wealthy. 

Here is the history of many a rich girl. 
She is born without welcome, fed on a 
bottle, reared by a nurse, grows up in a 

221 



222 EVENING ROUND-UP 

nursery, estranged from her mother, later 
on sent away to school, mixes with a lot of 
other rich girls, gets lots ot foolish notions, 
false estimates, and prejudiced views. She 
graduates and comes home and there are 
a lot ot "doings' ' which she attends, then 
comes the show-oft which is called a debut. 

She is shown oft like a filly at the horse 
show, and some high-collared young man 
wins her head although she thinks it's her 
heart. She thinks it's the thing to marry, 
and he is such "a swell lellow," he is such 
"good company," and he "dances so well," 
— these qualities win her head. 

So the girl marries, has children, husband 
goes broke and the girl awakens to the 
necessity of coming down trom her pedestal, 
facing stern necessity, and raising her 
children as her mother should have raised 
her. 

That's the picture ot the poor rich girl 
whose parents are to blame tor the non- 
sense she got in her head. 

But, you, Girl, you are going to learn 
your cooking on a gas range instead ot a 
chafing dish; you'll learn to bake bread 
before fudge; you'll learn how to cook solids 
before you learn to make salads. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 223 

You will study simplicity, sentiment, 
sense, sereneness, sweetness, rather than 
envy, trills, leathers and foolishness. 

God's noblest woman's calling is the 
work lor children and home. 

To cook and sew is a higher duty and 
better occupation than bridge parties and 
society. 

Not that you must cook and sew, my 
dear, but that you can it necessary. 

With the ability to cook and sew you 
can properly direct the cook or seamstress, 
and they will respect you tor your educa- 
tion. 

The painted, powdered, tinsel, fluff, 
feathers and lurebelow girl may be dashing 
now and you may envy her, but you, with 
your quiet, sweet, simple, sensible ways — 
you will win real love, real respect, real 
affection, real pleasures, real satisfaction, in 
all the days to come; you will make a 
success of your life. 

Frills and feathers may be an attraction 
to the girl who makes the fizzle of her lite, 
but sweetness and simplicity, and senti- 
ment and sense, are precious jewels that 
will endure for all time. 

Be that sweet girl. Do not be the 



224 EVENING ROUND-UP 

"show" kind, or the blow kind, be the real 
"know" kind, and you will grow in the 
hearts of all who love reality and hate 
artificiality. We all love the "know" kind — 
the sweet, simple, sensible girl who knows. 

So here's my hand, little sister, little 
daughter, little girl, and to you here are 
also the sweetest thoughts ot mine heart, 
for I picture you through eyes, and through 
a heart, that sees two sweet little girls of 
my very own. 

I am going to stick mighty close to my 
girls and try to bring them up to be real 
girls who will be loving, lovable and loved. 

So then here is the hope that you, girl, 
will start right, keep right and end right. 
I want you to think ot sense, sentiment, 
and simplicity rather than dances, dollars, 
duds and doings. 

I want your life to be one of poise, 
happiness and serenity instead ot noise, 
worry and nerves. 

This little message is all for you — GIRL. 



SPECULATION 



You Can't Earn Your Board on the 
Board of Trade 

I've been riding through the golden 
wheat belt of Kansas, and estimated the 
new wealth; for that which grows is the 
only real profit or wealth. All else are 
trades, speculation or bookkeeping accounts. 

The farmer plants the wheat. God makes 
it grow and we eat it. 

But in a big building in an amphitheater 
in the city, is a crowd of wild men in shirt 
sleeves, perspiring, shouting, making signs, 
clawing the air. This crowd never raised 
wheat, but they raise pandemonium. It's 
the board of trade; its job is getting the 
wheat from the farm to you and me who 
require it to live. 

I've recently visited the biggest food 
market in the world, the Chicago Board of 
Trade. Below the gallery sat a nice digni- 
fied elderly man who wrote a note on a slip 
of paper, folded it and gave it to a boy. 

The boy was off like a shot to the wheat 
pit; he gave it to another white-haired 

225 



226 EVENING ROUND-UP 

young-faced man ol cultured, refined, even 
scholarly bearing, so different trom the row 
raisers in the pit. 

This nice man was the floor man for a 
big grain commission house; he read the 
message, and then did the Dr. Jekyll and 
Mr. Hyde act. He turned red, purple, and 
green. His neck swelled, he threw back 
his head and screamed while he held up 
his hand and five fingers. Each finger 
meant 5,000 bushels ol wheat; five fingers 
meant 25,000 bushels to sell. In an instant, 
like a pack ol wolves, the other crazy men 
raised their hands with bent and twisted 
fingers, the sign language ol the pit. 

The old man made a sign, the wheat was 
sold. He was Dr. Jekyll again; he yawned 
and was composed once more. 

Soon a boy came with another slip, and 
the old man went mad again. I asked my 
host if it wasn't pretty busy today; he 
said "no, it's a dull market.' ' 

That 25,000 bushels ol wheat was sold 
half a dozen times. Every broker who 
handled it got a commission. The buying 
and selling was speculation. 

Outside the board were the hangers on, 
the down-and-outs, the has-beens, who used 



EVENING ROUND-UP 227 

to be in the pit and throw fits like the nice 
old man I've described. 

These has-beens have the speculation 
bug, and hope they can come back some 
day and make fortunes out of lucky guesses. 

The only ones who make money on the 
board of trade are the company who rents 
offices, the cigar man, the lunch man, and 
the telegraph operators, and the commission 
men who get one-eighth of a cent a bushel 
either way the market goes. Some of these 
commission men get the speculation bug 
and go broke, and yet there are callow 
youths and business men and clerks and 
other outsiders who believe they are smart 
enough to speculate on the Eoard of Trade. 
That belief helps fatten our penitentiaries. 

No outsider ever made money on the 
Board of Trade if he stayed with the game. 
And the speculators on the inside graduate 
to the down-and-out class if they play long 
enough. There's a group of millionaires 
who control them and all others are pikers. 

You can't beat the Board of Trade; it's 
not in the cards. 



STARS 



A Little Study of the Universe 

Tonight I am in the Ozarks and old 
Mother Earth is passing through the belt 
of meteoric dust, that great mysterious sea 
in the universe through which we pass 
every year about the middle of November. 

It is midnight. I will not reach my 
destination until 1 :30 in the morning. Two 
fellow passengers in the car, after cussing 
their luck, have finally gone to Snoozeland, 
while I call the passing hours opportunity. 

I look out into the night and marvel at 
the countless stars in the infinite black 
void, and wonder how closely those stars 
may be connected with humanity. 

That they are connected I have no doubt, 
for truly "the sun, the moon, the stars, and 
endless space as well, are parts, are things, 
like me, that cometh from and runneth by 
one grand power of which I am in truth a 
part, an atom though I be." 

How many stars are there? Well, let's get 
ready to appreciate number. I can see 

228 



EVENING ROUND-UP 229 

about 3,000; with opera glasses I could see 
30,000. 

The late Franklin Adams photographed 
the whole canopy with 206 photographs. 
He counted the stars by mathematical plans, 
and gives the conclusion that there are 
1,600,000,000 stars, and that number is 
just about the number of humans on this 
earth. So then there is one star for each 
of us. 

Each of those stars, practically speaking, 
is larger than the earth. Many have human 
beings who think and reason like we do. 
Multiply the 1,600,000,000 population on 
this earth by any portion of the 1,600,000,- 
000 stars that may have thinking creatures 
on them ; multiply that total by the millions 
of years and millions of generations that 
have passed out of existence. 

Think of these numbers and limitless 
boundaries and then tell me that one little 
man, on one little star we call earth, has a 
strangle-hold on truth, and that his view- 
point, his ism, his little dogma, his narrow 
creed, is all sufficient, and that he can give 
me and you and them definite rules and 
patterns for our belief. 

Verily, little protoplasm, you have an- 



230 EVENING ROUND-UP 

other guess. We can by experience and 
tests prove two and two make four. We 
can by practice and experience prove that 
love, kindness, help, gentleness, sympathy, 
cheer and courage bring happiness. 

These are tangible things; but when one 
wee Willie with sober face tells you and me 
and others that he has the truth about the 
definite, full workings of God's plans and 
purposes, I think of the greatness of 1,600,- 
000,000 stars each with 1,600,000,000 hu- 
mans and of the unnumbered generations 
gone by, and say, verily we must live 
TODAY and do the best we can today in 
act and thought and word. 

Yesterday is dead, tomorrow is unknown ; 
where we have been, where we will be, we 
know not. Where we are today we know, 
and God in His great plan knows only the 
final answer as to our future estate. 

He will take us and hold us and place us 
in His keeping and "according to His pur- 
pose, even though we do not or cannot 
follow or believe any one of the little man- 
formed creeds, isms or cults as the measure 
and rule for our beliefs. 

Those stars testify to the certainty of 
God, and I believe in Him. 



LEADERS 



Are Ever Subject to Backbiters 

When a man by his brains or by fortunate 
combination or circumstances arises to a 
position of prominence he becomes a target 
for the envious and a pattern for the 
imitator. 

Emulation and envy are ever alert in 
trying to steal the fruits of the leader or 
doer of things. 

The man who makes a name gets both 
reward and punishment. The reward is 
his satisfaction in being a producer, a help 
to the world, and the glory that comes from 
widespread recognition and publicity oi his 
accomplishment. The punishment is the 
slurs, the enmity, the envy and the detrac- 
tion, to say nothing of the downright lies 
which are told about him. 

When a man writes a great book, builds 
a great machine, discovers a great truth or 
invents a useful article, he becomes a 
target for the envious few. 

If he does a mediocre thing he is un- 
noticed; if his work is a masterpiece, 

231 



232 EVENING ROUND-UP 

jealousy wags its tongue and untruth uses 
its sting. 

Wagner was jeered. Whistler was called 
a mere charlatan. Langley was pronounced 
crazy. Fulton and Stephenson were pitied. 
Columbus faced mutiny on his ship on the 
eve of his discovery of land. Millet starved 
in his attic. Time has passed, and the 
backbiters are all in unmarked graves. 
The world until its end will enjoy Wagner's 
music, Whistler and Millet's painting will 
attact artists from all over the world, and 
inventors will reverence the names of Fulton 
and Stephenson. 

The leader is assailed because he has 
done a thing worth while; the slanderers 
are trying to equal his feat, but their imita- 
tions serve to prove his greatness. 

Because jealous ones cannot equal the 
leader they seek to belittle him. 

But the truly worth-while man wins his 
laurels and he remains a leader; he had 
made his genius and the creature ot his 
hopes and brains known to the world. 

Above the clamor and noise, above the 
din of the rocks thrown at him, his master- 
piece and his fame endure. 

And compensation, the salve to the sore, 



EVENING ROUND-UP 233 

makes the great man deaf to the noise and 
immune to the attacks of the knockers. 

In his own heart he knows he has done 
a thing worth while; his own conscience is 
clear, and he cares not for the estimate of 
the world. 

His own character is his chief concern, 
and he is content in the knowledge that 
time will bring its reward. 

If you have high ideals in business, if 
you make success, mark well, you will be 
a subject of attacks, of lies, of malice, of 
envy, of disreputable competition; there is 
no way out of it. 

But you will be repaid. The lover of fair 
play, the grateful, the true, honest, worth- 
while people will flock to your standard; 
the riff-raff will skulk behind bushes and 
throw rocks and mud, but their acts will 
prove to the great mass of the people that 
your purposes, practices and policies are 
right. 

Therefore, courage is to be your chief 
asset; with patience, pride, perseverance 
your lieutenants. 

Be not weary, grow not discouraged when 
your progress is hampered by obstacles. 



OLD AGE 



The Pleasures of a Well Lived Life 

There are three periods in our lives: the 
youth period or prospective period, the 
adult or introspective period, and the old 
age or retrospective period. 

Too many there are who look forward to 
old age with fear or dread. 

But old age has its joys and pleasures as 
keen as youth or adult age, if the youth 
and adult ages were lived sanely, worthily 
and properly. 

If middle age is spent in getting dollars 
only, then old age will be days of empty 
nothingness. 

Youth is the planning time of ideals and 
ambitions, middle age the building time and 
old age the dividend time. 

With many, old age is reading the book 
of the past, with sadness as the reader 
recognizes that the ideals, plans and hopes 
were shattered. As age turns the page in 
the book of the past he reads one hope after 
another vanished in smoke. 

Anticipation is seldom realized, aad this 

234 



EVENING ROUND-UP 235 

is as it should be, for in time men will learn 
to live each day for each day's good and 
each day's happiness. 

Let us perform our duty today, let us 
put away a kindly act, a smile, a word of 
cheer in the bank of good deeds. 

Each of us has our share in this world's 
work. It matters little whether our actual 
share is what we had guessed or wished it 
to be. 

Vicissitudes clip us here and there, so- 
called misfortune or bad luck will strike us 
when least suspected. The failure of our 
dreams should not grieve us. 

We cannot reach up and grasp the stars, 
but like the pilot at the wheel at sea we can 
steer by those stars and help us on our way. 

Our ideal may not be realized but the 
journey to it may still be a pleasant one. 

Our ideals, plans and hopes had a real 
purpose, a real service; they gave us courage 
and made us work and thus they were well 
worth while. 

We must not in the old age period con- 
demn ourselves because our plans failed or 
our castles were shattered. 

There is no hard luck but incurable 
disease or death. It is not for us to mourn 



236 EVENING ROUND-UP 

the past or weep over the vases from which 
the flowers are gone. 

In our active days we must realize we 
are putting memories away in our brains 
that will come back to us in old age. 

Only what we put in our brains we can 
take out. 

So then, Mr. Avarice, I warn you if gold 
is your God it's cold comfort you will 
get in your sunset days. 

Build up loving ties, appreciation and 
worth-while riches of good deeds, and in 
your evening of life you will be welcome in 
the midst of the group. 

If your life was sold for gold your even- 
ing of life will be short and miserable; 
legatees will grudge you your every breath; 
they will endure you simply because they 
are checking off the days from Time's 
calendar until the day of your passing, and 
the dollars you sold your soul and heart 
and life for will be lavishly spent by cold- 
blooded heirs who cared nothing for you. 

Leave a legacy of love, example and 
character, and if with these there are a few 
dollars, they simply prove your frugality, 
economy and independence. 

A few dollars left to heirs will help. 



EVENING ROUND-UP 237 

Many dollars will hurt. Dollars in old age 
will give you pleasure by helping in tight 
corners, and helping your loved ones over 
the bumps in the road. 

Use the dollars to help those you love to 
help themselves, and your old age will be 
a busy, happy one and you won't be in the 
way. 

To prepare for that happy period of your 
life the foundation must be built in the 
active today period. 

Carry smiles in your old age; they will 
keep the heart young, the digestion good, 
and life will be worth while. 



TIME 



What Geology Tells Us About Time 

I have traveled horseback over the great 
arid plains of the West and read the story 
of the ages gone before. 

In Arizona and New Mexico there are 
ancient ruins of forts and cities built by 
people we know not of. 

Chalcedony Park with its petrified forest 
of mammoth trees silently testifies to a 
period when vegetation was rampant and on 
what is now a desert 

In Wyoming there is coal enough to fur- 
nish fuel for the United States lor several 
centuries. 

Coal is carbon made from trees and 
vegetation covered with earth and rock, 
pressed, and preserved through the thousands 
of years necessary to-change it from vegeta- 
ble to carbon. 

Oceans and floods gradually covered 
millions of acres of trees and plants with 
ooze and soil and sand. Ages turned some 
of these deposits to stone. 

There in bleak Wyoming is testimony 

238 



EVENING ROUND-UP 239 

and evidence of changes that time only can 
bring about. 

"A thousand years is as a day and a day 
is as a thousand years." Thus wrote the 
scribe of old. So then we must consider 
this estimate of time in reading the history 
of the sequential events in the first chapter 
of Genesis which describes the order ol the 
world's creation. 

The arrangement of the formation ol the 
world was the dividing the light from the 
darkness, conforming to the rotation ol our 
globe and consequent day and night. 

Then the separating of land and water, 
then the birth of vegetation on the land, 
the creation of fish and reptiles in the sea, 
the fowls of the air, the beasts ol the field 
and finally the higher animal, man. 

And the pages of the earth's surface 
carry in their stratification indelible records 
harmonizing with this scriptural arrange- 
ment of the evolution of the earth from its 
chaotic misty past to its concrete definite 
present. 

Yes, this earth of ours is old, so old 
mere man cannot contemplate or accurately 
estimate its wondrous age. 

The fossils of the mammoth reptiles and 



240 EVENING ROUND-UP 

beasts which lived before the ken of man 
are numerous in the fascinating West I 
know so well. 

In those arid desert hills are bones of the 
ancient rhinoceros, parent of our horse, and 
there are shells and fossils of fish and bones 
of animals imbedded in the strata of rock. 

Man reads these pages and he is lost in 
bewilderment, impoverished in thought, 
dumb for words, paralyzed for expressions, 
to co-ordinate the evidence with any man 
measure of what the age of the earth is. 

Historians say the world was 4,004 years 
old before the Christian era and 1915 
years have passed since then, making the 
age to date 5,919 years. 

The first records speak of Adam and Eve 
and Cain and Abel and up to the time Cain 
went to the land of Nod there is no record 
of any other people in the world. 

It is not surprising.that through the dark 
ages dates and facts were lost and even 
there may have been mistakes in transla- 
tions. 

We have not a complete history in 
written language, but we have some very 
pefinite history in the rocks and hills and 
lands and seas 



EVENING ROUND-UP 241 

There must have been people in the 
world when Cain went to the land of Nod, 
for the Bible history says Cain took unto 
himself a wife and his wife bore him a son 
and she named the son Enoch, and she 
builded a city for her first born and the 
name of the city was called Enoch. 

The world certainly is more than 5,919 
years old. Read the record of time so 
plainly visible at Niagara Falls. 

Niagara Falls eats away about two feet 
of rock in a century; the gorge is a good 
many miles long. At the present rate of 
erosion it takes 2,640 years to eat away a 
mile. Multiply that by the distance be- 
tween the falls and Lake Ontario and you 
have an idea of how many years Niagara 
Falls has been at work. 

Before Niagara Falls was in existence 
the country round about was under the 
sea; before that under glaciers; before that 
under the tropics, and I don't know how 
many times it has swung on its pendulum 
between Frigid, Temperate andTropicZones. 

So you see we are getting lost in a 
labyrinth of mystery when we take these 
known facts concerning the earth's age and 
try to definitely set any particular number 
of millions of years as the old world's age. 



CLOSING NOTE 



A Little Appreciation to Everyone 
Who Reads This Book 

And now my pleasant occupation of 
writing this book draws to an end. I 
sincerely hope you have received some 
definite suggestions that will be helpful to 
you; that's my first purpose. 

I have more books in my brain in embryo. 
They are hatching out and you may look 
for books of mine to appear every once in 
awhile so long as ability to write is mine. 

There is an indescribable something in 
my relation with my readers that is sweet 
beyond words to tell. I look upon you, the 
readers, as brothers and sisters; yes, more 
than that, you are my friends. 

As I travel both in this country and 
abroad I drop in book 'stores and meet the 
friends who sell my books and from them 
I hear some mighty pleasant and enthu- 
siastic expressions of approval. Apprecia- 
tion is worth more than dollars. 

The daily increasing sales of my books is 
due to one thing, and that is that you, 

242 



EVENING ROUND-UP 243 

my readers, my friends, are telling your 
friends to buy my books. This personal 
interest and recommendation is advertising 
of the most valuable kind. 

Because you get your friends to buy, the 
sales are good and that's encouragement. 
It's the spur that keeps me ever writing, 
planning, and studying, that I may write 
more books. 

So here is my hand of friendship, my 
heart's gratitude, my complete apprecia- 
tion of your interest and patronage. 

We've spent many pleasant moments 
together in these evening round-ups, and 
until we meet again in person or through 
one of my books, keep good thoughts work- 
ing for your benefit. Get serenity, poise, 
power, purpose and good cheer. 

You can be strong; you will be strong so 
long as you control your thought habits. 

Life is beautiful, it's well worth while. 
Clouds will come, obstacles will confront 
you, troubles will get in your way ; but each 
and all of these will disappear, if you keep 
on your way, with courage, smiles, will 
power, and perseverance. 

And from me and my loved ones to you 
and your loved ones here are all good 



244 EVENING ROUND-UP 

wishes, and encouragement, and sympathy, 
and love, all tied together with this golden 
thought: let us help one another while we 
sojourn here today, and as we do it — let us 

LIVE 

LAUGH and 

LOVE 

Thus endeth our Evening Round-Up. 



Col. Hunter's 
— Books — 



Pep $1.00 

Evening Round-Up . . 1.00 

Dollars and Sense 50 

Ginger Snaps 50 

Brass Tacks 50 

Character 25 

Friends 25 

Col. Hunter's Motto. .10 

(Brass) 



Any of above sent postpaid upon 
receipt of price. 



Address 

HUNTER SERVICE 

KANSAS CITY, MO., U. S. A. 



245 




PEP 



A Book of 

Poise 

Efficiency 

Peace 

By Col. Wm. C. Hunter 



Real Self Help 

Optimism 

Health 

and Happiness 

224 Pages - $1.00 



A MESSAGE 



— to you who are rushing along, to tell you — "Slow Up!" 
A cry to you who are lagging behind — "Brace Up I Catch 
Upl" 

Do you need a lift or a push — sympathy or a slap on the 
back — are you a help or a hindrance to yourself? In either 
case, you don't care what's wrong — you want to know what's 
right! Let this book tell you. When you are willing to 
help yourself, here is a ready friend to point the way. 

It tells you how to analyze your assets and how to cash 
them in to realize the best results from those assets. 

Col. Hunter says: "Nothing I have ever written has given 
me so much pleasure, for I receive thousands of letters from 
those who have been in shadowland, tired, discouraged and 
miserable, and they now have courage, strength, ambition, 
hope, poise, efficiency and peace through reading the experi- 
ences and following the suggestions of PEP." 

This remarkable book is 75^x454, 224 pages. Narrow 12 
mo. fits the pocket. Author's portrait. Pep is beautifully 
bound in cloth. 

Sent postpaid anywhere for $1.00. 



HUNTER SERVICE 

KANSAS CITY, MO., U. S. A. 



246 



Evening Round-Up 



by Col. Wm. C. Hunter 






8y 
CaI.\Vrn,C- 

tt tinier x 



More Good 
Stuff like 

PEP 

256 pages, $1.00 

This book is the 
same size as PEP 
but has thirty- 
two pages more. 
The following 
foreword of the 
author tells its 
purpose: 

"Each evening, 
just before retir- 
ing, we will have 
a little Round-Up 
of theday's doings, 
of the problems 
of our business 
and home life, of our hopes and ambitions. 

We'll try to solve perplexities, dissolve worries, 
absolve ourselves from pull backs and resolve to 
better our lives. 

We'll plan and prepare, that we may have more 
poise — efficiency — peace; that's PEP. 

We'll learn how to establish helpful thought 
habit, that our lives may be full of gladsome notes 
instead of gruesome gloom." — The Author. 

The Evening Round Up will be appreciated and 
welcomed by all who have read PEP. It's a great, 
inspiring, practical, plain, powerful book. It is 
brilliantly written, and most fascinating reading. 

Delivered postpaid anywhere for $1.00. 

HUNTER SERVICE 

KANSAS CITY, MO., U. S. A. 



247 



Dollars and Sense 



by Col. Wm. C. Hunter 



\L — 



Dollars 



17 Col.WnLCHunter 




This 
Great Book 

Has reached a sale of 
a half -million copies 

Price 50 Cents. 



A PRACTICAL book of business "horse sense," 
containing 130 pages of boiled-down, suc- 
cessful, practical experience. It treats of the 
vitals of business — from the inside; of expense; 
fixed charges; overhead; buying; selling; advertis- 
ing; credit; debt; employer and employee. It is 
suggestive, simple in language and systematic in 
arrangement. It embodies little theory but much 
tried-out truth. It has a real dollar-and-cent value 
to employer and employee. 

You will find interest and benefit in its pages. 
Fully a half million of these books have found 
appreciative readers. It has been bought in large 
quantities by heads of firms and of departments 
to give to those under them. The investment 
brings a substantial return to both. 

Bound in cloth; size, 4^x6^4 inches. 
Sent to any address postpaid for 50c. 



HUNTER SERVICE 

KANSAS CITY, MO., U. S. A. 



248 







byCoj^nvipHunter 

r BoliabfSerise 



Brass Tacks 

By Col. Wm. G. Hunter 

50 Cents 

A volume of 

"capsule optimism," 

full of smiles, cheer, 

courage and hope 



BRASS TACKS is a unique publication, so-called because 
Col. Hunter gets right down to "brass tacks" in advanc- 
ing pointed optimisms, level-headed truths, driven-home 
common sense. It is a book of vital paragraphs and con- 
crete ideas dealing with the life issues of every day. A 
suggestive, terse guide to right thinking along the highway 
of humor and hopefulness. 

There are sentences to remember for their keen analysis, 
their brevity, their wit. You will like "Brass Tacks" if you 
like to get somewhere and get there quickly. There is enter- 
tainment and inspiration. It is the kind of book you re-read 
— and find new meanings and help each time. 



Bound in cloth; size, 454x654 inches, a handy 

size to slip in the pocket and read at odd 

moments. 

Printed in two colors. With half-tone portrait 

of the author. 

Sent postpaid to any address for 50 cents. 



HUNTER SERVICE 



KANSAS CITY, MO., U. S. A. 



249 



Ginger Snaps 

By COL. Wm. C. HUNTER 




This 
Great Book 

will reach a sale of a 
million, we hope. 

Price 50 Cents 



GINGER SNAPS is a book of business helps. 
It is one of the best business books from the 
pen of Colonel Hunter, and he declares it 
even a better book than its famous companion, 
Dollars and Sense. 

Ginger Snaps is up to the minute in helpful, 
practical business suggestions, profitable plans 
and good ideas. 

It is the same size as Dollars and Sense, printed 
in the same type, and on the same quality of paper. 
Ginger Snaps is printed on heavy paper and bound 
in imitation leather cover, semi-flexible. 

The size of Ginger Snaps is four and a half by 
six inches. It is a handy, tasty volume for pocket, 
for traveling bag or library table. 

Ginger Snaps is often bought in quantities by 
manufacturers, jobbers and business houses to 
give to employees. It's a splendid book for this 
purpose. 

Price 50 cents postpaid. 



HUNTER SERVICE 

KANSAS CITY, MO., U. S. A. 



250 



r 



Two Beautiful Gift Books 




CHARACTER 

25 Cents 

A beautifully printed gift 
book in art designs and col- 
ors. Cover embossed. Book 
bound with silk cord. Char- 
acter is one of Col. Hunter's 
best heart and soul outpour- 
ings. A beautiful book for 
your reading table. A splen- 
did book to give to your 
folks. 



FRIENDS 

25 Cents 

A touching appreciation of 
the much abused word, 
Friends. Printed on heavy 
art plate paper, illustrated 
in colors and gold ornaments. 
Cover embossed in silver. 

Every friend of Colonel 
Hunter who knows and ap- 
preciates his human, feeling 
Style will love this book. 



Either book sent postpaid anywhere for 25 cents. 



HUNTER SERVICE 

KANSAS CITY, MO., U. S. A. 



251 



Col. Hunter's 
Motto 

Price ... 10 Cents 

Engraved on heavy brass 
Exact size of illustration 



Be pleasant 
every morning 
until ten o'clock, 

ihe rest of the day 
will take care 
of itself 



This favorite motto* of Col. Wm. C. Hunter, with 
his signature, makes a fine pocket piece. It has a 
hole in the center so you may tack it up on your 
desk, dresser or on the wall. It is engraved in 
heavy brass, background with black, baked enamel. 
This beautiful souvenir sent postpaid to any ad- 
dress for 10c or $1.00 per dozen. 

HUNTER SERVICE 

KANSAS CITY, MO., U. S. A. 



252 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Dec. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Parti Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



L1BRA RY OF CONGRESS 




013 610 1213 



Bepleasanl 

every morning 

until ten o'clock, 

therestoflheday 
will take care 
of itself 




